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LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 

,irtt^ 

Chap. Copyright No. 



Shelf. 



MM 



UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 



PURE GOLD, 



BY 



J 



GEORGE D. WATSON, 

Author of "White Robes, "Holiness Manual," 
"Soul Food," Etc., Etc. 



Copyright, A. W. HALL. 
1808. 



2nd COPY, 
1898. 




A. W. HALL, Publisher, 

SYRACUSE, N. Y. ., 

1898. \ Lj f^t\% 



■^ 



CONTENTS. 

Page. 

Pure Gold i-io 

The Order of Melchisedec 10-16 

The Awfulness of Sin 17-23 

How to Die to Self 23-30 

Jesus and Moses 30-37 

Learning Spiritual I,essons 38-45 

Tenderness of Spirit 45-51 

The Banquet at Bethany 52-62 

Purple Finger Nails 63-71 

A Critical Spirit 72-80 

Spiritual Glimpses 80-86 

Blessed Poverty 86-93 

The Dangers of Prosperity 93-98 

Signs of Answered Prayer 99-104 

Take Time 104-108 

Paul's Thorn 108-113 

Human Religion 1 14-120 

Wrinkles 120-127 

Who Iyove His Appearing 1 28-131 

Dreaming of Jesus 132-137 

Demoniac Possession 137-145 



/ 



I. 

PURE GOLD. 

We are told twice in the book of Revelation that 
the city of God is pure gold like unto clear glass, and 
then we are told in the same chapter that this city is 
the Bride of the Lamb, composed of sanctified, 
souls represented by the typical number of one hun- 
dred and forty-four thousand. (Compare Revelation, 
chapter 14 and 21.) Throughout the Scriptures gold 
is a type of divine character, of God's holiness impart- 
ed to his creatures. God has put into every created 
thing, into all minerals, and gems, and flowers, and in- 
sects, and birds, and animals, a peculiar meaning 
known only to himself, a divine and beautiful lan- 
guage, which he alone can interpret, and when he 
condescends to unveil to us the typical significance 
which lies veiled in all these things, our minds are daz- 
zled with the poetry of infinite wisdom, and our hearts 
are fed with truth coming to us through so many va- 
ried forms. Thus God created gold with just that 
combination of attributes, in substance, and color, and 
unalloyableness, to set forth his idea of the incarna- 
tion of his own blessed character in created souls, 
Hence gold is pre-eminently the type of Christ Jesus, 
that is of God incarnate in humanity, and hence a type 



2 PURK GOLD. 

of God's nature imparted to believers through Jesus. 
Gold is known to exist in three modes of existence, as 
it exists in the quartz, and then as it exists in com- 
merce and then as it exists in chemistry and science. In 
each of these forms it typifies the existence and prog- 
ress of the divine life in the soul. 

i. Gold in the quartz is a type of the Christ-life 
imparted to the penitent believer in the new birth. In 
this respect let us notice that gold is created. It is not 
produced by growth or development from other met- 
als, but was fashioned by an infinite will amid the fur- 
nace heats when God wrought in the geological ages. 

In like manner the changing of a sinner's heart 
into a new character is a divine creation. The wash- 
ing away of our sins, and the reversing and changing 
of our affections, causing us to hate sin and to love and 
to long after holiness, is a stupendous act of the Holy 
Spirit. The life of God is never grown into us, nor 
developed out of human affection, but an inexpressible 
miracle of life infused from an uncreated fountain. 

In the next place the gold as it exists in the mine 
or quartz is not amalgamated with other substances, 
though it is in close proximity to baser metals, and 
existing in the same lump with rock, or iron, or sand, 
yet it is always gold, and nothing but gold it never 
loses its inherent character. 

In like manner the Christ-life in the regenerated 
heart may be surrounded by other and antagonistic 
moral elements, yet it is never confused or blended 



PURE GOLD. 3 

with them, but always possesses its peculiar divine 
character. That which is born of the flesh remains 
flesh, that is, it can never be turned into the spirit, and 
that which is born of the Spirit remains spirit, that is, 
it never degenerates into flesh. So that though the 
spiritual life be-gotten of the Holy Ghost, may live in 
proximinity with native Adamic evil, yet it is 
never amalgamated with that evil, but, true to 
its divine instinct, craves that which is spirit- 
ual, and it seeks to have all uncongenial princi- 
ples expelled from its presence. In the next 
place the gold in the quartz is just as good 
an article in itself considered as it ever will be. It is 
true that it must undergo many processes before it 
reaches its highest forms of value and utility, yet 
nevertheless its essence, its inherent worth, will never 
be changed ; it is gold and nothing but gold, and will 
remain gold as long as the Creator pleases to preserve 

it. 

In like manner the love of God in the heart, the 

precious Christ-life imparted to the penitent believer 
is celestial gold, and is just as good an article in itself 
considered as exists in the heart of an angel or a 
glorified saint. 

The work of sanctification will purge out the un- 
holy and incongruous human sinfulness, and thereby 
give the Christ-life the whole space of the moral na- 
ture, and lift it to higher degrees of power and useful- 
ness, but this sanctifying operation does not change 



4 PURE GOLD. 

the nature or quality of that holy golden life which 
comes from God in the new birth. And as gold pos- 
sesses a certain number of attributes, and certain in- 
herent beauties which can never be changed in their 
essence or number, whether it exists in the hidden 
mine or glitters in the crown of a king, the qualities 
remain the same, so the life of God in the soul, even in 
its earliest stage, possesses all the attributes and in- 
herent graces, both in number and quality which it 
ever will possess through eternal ages. The perfect 
cleansing of a believer does not multiply his Christian 
graces, but removes the unholy opposites of those 
graces. Hence nothing in our moral history can sur- 
pass the magnitude of that work of grace which forms 
within us the golden life of the Son of God. 

2. Gold in commerce. This is the form in which 
gold exists in currency and utensils of art and beauty. 
Now in passing from its original form in the mine to 
these higher modes of existence, it must pass through 
certain processes, which have their beautiful counter- 
parts in the processes of transforming grace. In most 
cases it must be ground or crushed into a fine meal, that 
it may thereby be liberated from the earthly substances 
which cling to it. But in this crushing the whole 
aim is not to crush the gold, but to pulverize the 
quartz and earthly substances in which the gold is 
found, in order that the gold may be liberated. This 
is true of the mixed believer. God must lead him 
through a process of pulverizing in order to crush the 



PURE GOLD. 5 

flinty elements in his will, and tempers, and 
disposition, not with a view of grinding the 
spiritual life in him, but that the natural Adam- 
ic life in the soul, which is hard and cold 
and uncongenial to God, may be crushed into powder r 
that the Christ-life may be emancipated from it. 
And as all quartz is not equally hard or flinty, so all 
believers are not equally stubborn or self-willed, and 
some will go to pieces under the hammer of God's 
word more readily than others. Yet, nevertheless all 
the Adamic quartz must be ground in order to separate 
it from the true spiritual life. In the next place the 
crushed gold quartz must be washed. It is by this 
washing that even the finest particles of gold are sep- 
arated from the dust and sand of common rock and 
earth. This is a beautiful and accurate illustration of 
the washing of the believer from that earthliness of na- 
ture which separates human depravity from the gold 
of divine grace. No believer reaches the point where 
he can be washed from all inward sin, until he is first 
broken down on all the points of his self-will. 

It is the mighty hammer of God's truth, some- 
times in the form of law, or in the form of severe judg- 
ments, or in the form of searching truth, or in the form 
of trouble and sorrow; these are but the shapes of 
God's flint mills which break down the toughness of 
our natural wills, and then we are ready for the flood 
gates of cleansing power to be turned upon us, to 
wash us from the crushed fragments of our own 



6 PURE GOLD. 

choices and dispositions and ambitions and carnal de- 
sires. It is then that the gold which was given us in 
the new birth gets liberated from its Adamic mixture. 
In the next place this washed gold is melted and 
formed into blocks of pure gold without earthly ad- 
mixture. 

In like manner just as soon as the omnipotent 
Sanctifier washes out our native quartz and carnal 
mind by the precious blood of Jesus, the blessed Holy 
Ghost then melts our whole heart, and understanding, 
and will, into a warm flow of inexpressible love and 
sweetness and power. When the Comforter thus 
comes in, it seems our whole being will dissolve in a 
furnace of spotless love. All the fountains of our be- 
ing are broken up and overflow their banks. He 
then reveals to us that the love in our souls is made 
perfect, like a block of pure gold. In the next place 
these blocks of gold are minted into coins, or made in- 
to articles of usefulness or beauty, in which state it 
goes out over the world as the gold of commerce. 
And so the sanctified believer, after receiving the gift 
of the Holy Spirit, is minted into divine currency, and 
into spiritual weapons, and utensils of divine power 
and beauty, and sent forth among mankind to show 
forth God's grace in testimony, in love, in good works, 
in the enduring of manifold tribulations, and thus the 
golden life of God is manifested to others, that they al- 
so may become transformed and made "partakers of 
like precious faith." 



PURE GOLD. 7 

3. Gold in chemistry and science. Not until 
the nineteenth century have scientific men, after many 
experiments, found the art of refining" gold to that 
height of perfection and beauty which was affirmed of 
it in the first century by the Holy Spirit. For gener- 
ations learned skeptics, in hunting for arguments 
against the infallibility of God's word, used the pas- 
sage in Revelation 21 about gold being "like trans- 
parent glass," as a supposed proof of Scriptural error, 
they stoutly affirming that gold never was and never 
could be transparent. But the time came when God 
had a chemist who experimented with the refining of 
gold, until he brought it into a state of transparency 
and found in looking through it that it had a beautiful 
green color like an emerald. This proved that the 
science in the Bible is many centuries ahead of the 
science of men. Water seems colorless, yet in look- 
ing into deep, clear water, it presents a green colon 
So glass seems colorless, yet in looking through very 
thick glass it reflects a beautiful green tint. And so 
yellow gold when made transparent refracts the light 
like a beautiful emerald. To make gold reach this 
lofty state requires an enormous degree of heat, which 
in a certain sense glorifies the gold, and purges it 
from its own self. This is a type of a real process of 
annealing and furnace-testing through which the Holy 
Ghost leads those who are the chosen spouse of the 
Lamb of God. The Scriptures in multiplied forms of 
teaching set forth the truth that after believers are ful- 



8 PURE GOLD. 

ly sanctified they are led through processes of severe 
trials, hot furnace-testings, which put to thorough 
proof every virtue and every grace of their hearts. 
There are conflicts with powers of darkness, corres- 
ponding with the seven years' war of the Jews in 
Canaan. Sometimes like the desolations of Jab, or 
like the imprisonment of Joseph, or like the Spirit- 
baptized David fighting his way to a throne, or like 
Daniel in the lion's den, or like the apostolic suffer- 
ings after Pentecost. These extraordinary testings 
may sometimes be external, or sometimes internal; 
they may be mostly in the physical nature, in other 
cases mostly in the mental, in other cases they may be 
purely spiritual, but in whatever shape the furnace may 
be, the result that God is aiming at is the same, name- 
ly, the complete mellowing, melting, transforming of 
the whole nature, into a beautiful, celestial transparen- 
cy and sweetness of Christ-like character. This is the 
fine art work of the Holy Ghost. When sanctified 
believers pass through this furnace refinement, they 
take on a more intensified form, and a more heavenly 
type of mind than ever before. The work of perfect 
love is marvelously intensified, and broadened, and 
made more profound and simple in all its character- 
istics. 

In this state the love of God glows in the heart 
like a sweet, steady, spicy flame. There are less vi- 
cissitudes in the experience. It is a state of wonderful 
simplicity; everything is transparent. The words are 



PURE GOLD. 9 

few. A divine stillness pervades the mind, not the 
stillness of death, but the stillness of a hot summer 
noon. The understanding is lifted into a divine at- 
mosphere where it sees God in every thing and every 
event. As looking through gold in this highest state 
of perfection it seems green, so the mind in this high- 
est state of the sanctified life is in a state of perennial 
verdure. The Holy Spirit fills the thoughts with the 
verdure of perpetual spring. The understanding is 
flooded with divine beauty. 

Another trait of this gold is its exquisite softness, 
so much as to render it unfit for commercial purposes. 
In like manner the soul under the melting of burning 
love is filled with an unearthly tenderness. There is 
a gentleness of speech, and a slow, soft, measured walk 
with God. Loudness and impetuosity are gone. 
Harshness of judgment is melted away. The mellow- 
ness of a beautiful autumnal ripeness settles down on 
the whole being. 

Another trait of gold in this state is, its incredible 
expansiveness. A single cubic inch of it we hear can 
be hammered out to cover several acres of ground, in- 
to a veil so thin as to be invisible to the natural eye, 
and yet with a texture so fine as to hold itself together. 

In like manner, the soul that has passed into a 
real heavenly state of living has an immensity to it in 
every direction, a vastness of thought, a broadness of 
charity which envelops the world round and round; 
a magnitude of delicate sympathy for all sufferers 



IO THE ORDER OF ME1XHISEDEC. 

whether human or animal, a keen, far penetrating 
stretch of vision, which makes the soul feel as if it was 
standing on some lofty mount of observation scanning 
with utmost ease all the affairs of earth, and looking 
out unto the glory lit regions of the heavenly world. 

These are the crowning qualities of pure gold, and 
these are the blessed characteristics of those believers 
who are to compose that living, portable city which is 
the Lamb's wife. 



II. 

THE ORDER OF MELCHISEDEC. 

The epistle of Paul to the Hebrews stands pre- 
eminently above all the other epistles in one partic- 
ular feature, and that is it is crowded with arguments 
and illustrations from the Old Testament to prove 
Christian perfection. 

To converted Hebrews no argument for sancti- 
fication would prove so cogent and powerful as those 
drawn from their own Scriptures. And in this respect 
the epistle to the Hebrews transcends any other book 
in the New Testament. In the third and fourth chap- 
ters is the argument concerning crossing the Jordan 
into the promise of soul rest. 

In the fifth chapter is the argument of weaning 
the child, and the difference between liquid and solid 



THE ORDER OF MELCHISEDEC. II 

food. In the sixth chapter is the argument of leaving 
the a b c, and being borne unto perfection. In the 
seventh chapter is the argument of the two ranks of 
priesthood, the order of Aaron and the order of Mel- 
chisedec. In the eighth chapter is the argument of 
the two covenants, the one written in stone, and the 
other written in the heart. In the ninth and tenth 
chapters, is the double argument of the two veils in the 
tabernacle and the difference between the daily sacrifice 
in the holy place and the annual sacrifice for the most 
holy. In the eleventh chapter is the biographical ar- 
gument and illustration of perfect believers. In the 
twelfth chapter is the argument and marvelous parable 
of the two Pentecosts, the one at Mt. Sinai, the other 
at Mt. Sion. Each of these arguments contain proofs 
and illustrations, so rich in suggestion that to elaborate 
them all with confirmatory proof texts, and apply them 
to the realities of conscious experience of the spiritual 
life, would make a volume. In several chapters there 
is an allusion to Melchisedec, who was king of Salem 
(afterwards Jerusalem) and a priest of God in the days 
of Abraham. 

In the noth Psalm we have the prophecy that 
Paul elaborates in the seventh of Hebrews concerning 
a priestly order, higher than that of Aaron. But the 
force and beauty of the argument can be understood 
only when interpreted in the light of Christian perfec- 
tion, and as teaching that the elect followers of Jesus 
are to advance from the initial Christian life typified 



12 THK ORDER OF MELCHISEDEC. 

by the Levitical order into perfect spiritual union with 
Jesus, by which, as sharing the oneness of Jesus, they 
graduate into the Melchisedecian order. There are 
three or four strong points in the chapter to prove that 
this priestly order applies to the true saints of Jesus. 

Paul says that Melchisedec was first by interpre- 
tation king of righteousness, which in the Greek is the 
same as justification, and after that he was king of Sa- 
lem, which implies perfect peace. This proves that 
Paul's logic was driving toward the doctrine of Chris- 
tian perfection, or an inner life of perfect peace, which 
comes after the work of justification. 

He then proceeds in the same chapter to present 
four points in which the priestly rank of Melchisedec 
was superior to the Levitical order. 

i. It was superior in the point of life long serv- 
ice. A Jewish priest coul not begin his public ministry 
till twenty-five years of age, and unless he were a high 
priest his public ministry closed at the age of fifty. 
Hence there was great limitation in his service as to 
time. But in the case of Melchisedec there was no 
such narrow restriction. He did not inherit the 
priestly office from his ancestors, nor did he have to 
relinquish it at any special age to a successor; doubt- 
less he was a prophet and priest from a young man, 
and continued so as long as he lived; and as he had his 
call and commission directly from the Holy Ghost, and 
not from any ecclesiastical establishment, so in this 
respect he was in his ministry without pedigree, and 



THE ORDER OF MELCHISEDEC. 1 3 

without a specified time of service. There was a per- 
ceptible parallel to this in those believers who by the 
full baptism of the Spirit enter into the true priestly life 
of Jesus. Before the believer is filled with the light and 
the liberty of the Spirit, he is, as Paul says in Gala- 
tians, "under governors and tutors/' as to times and 
seasons, and his inner religious life is subject to speci- 
fied beginnings and endings, corresponding to the out- 
ward life of the Levitical order. But when he is set 
free from all spiritual bondage, and flooded with the 
liberty w T herewith Christ sets him free, he enters the 
Melchisedecian order, and if he apprehends his full 
privileges and will advance in the Spirit, he is lifted be- 
yond the rules of superannuation, and of waiting on 
the slow rules of a human priesthood, and so does not 
wait for Sanhedrim orders to begin saving souls, nor 
terminate his flaming ministry at any specified age, 
"But like unto the Son of God, he abideth a priest con- 
tinually." These emphatic words of Paul have a far- 
reaching meaning, extending into the coming millen- 
nial age, which is abundantly confirmed by other 
Scriptures, that the Melchisedecian order of saints are 
to be the priests under Christ in the millennial age. 

John declares that "God hath made us kings and 
priests unto God, forever and ever," and when we are 
linked in perfect union with Jesus, our priestly office is 
to be perpetual, both in this life and the life to come. 

2. The next point of superiority is, that the Mel- 
chisedecian order is world wide, for all nations and 



14 THK ORDER OF MELCHISEDEC. 

kindreds, regardless of caste or creed. The Levitical 
priests could serve God only for their own member- 
ship. How many thousands of Christians in all ages 
have lived and died who felt they could have no lib- 
erty in religious service, except in the pale of their own 
denomination. In a hundred different ways this spirit 
of imperfect religious experience manifests itself along 
lines of caste, or creed, or mode of dress, or position 
in prayer, or manner of song, or preaching, or taking 
the Lord's Supper, or something sectarian, which re- 
veals a cast-iron narrowness in religious thought and 
worship. 

A Levite could offer sacrifice only for a Jew, and 
all who are of that order of believers are in some re- 
spects so limited still. But Melchisedec was subject 
to no such limitation, he could offer sacrifice and in- 
tercession for any man, of any nation, or any creed un- 
der heaven. 

The whole world was his parish. When a be- 
lievers enters into the real scriptural fulness of God, he 
passes from the Levitical order, which is like a land- 
locked river, into the Melchisedecian order, which is 
the limitless ocean of divine love, where names and 
sects and party lines vanish, and he can serve God in 
boundless liberty, with believers of any name, without 
hanging to any mode of prayer, or mode of baptism, 
or mode of communion. This is the real priesthood 
of Jesus, and those who are to reign with him in his 
coming kingdom will be only those who are baptized 



the; order of melchisedec. 15 

of the Spirit out and beyond all national and race pre- 
judices, and all sectarian narrowness. 

For only such will 'be qualified to be priests and 
princes in all the earth. Psa. 45:16. 

3. The next point of superiority is that the Mel- 
chisedecian order are both kings and priests united in 
the same person. In the Jewish economy, a Levite 
could not be a king, and the princely tribe of Judah 
could not serve as priests. But Jesus was born of Ju- 
dah, and yet he was made a priest, and this union of 
the two offices in himself lifted him beyond any ex- 
ample in the Jewish church, and in this respect he was 
like Melchisedec, who was both a king and a priest. 
This same argument applies to us. It requires a sec- 
ond work of grace, and the full baptism of the Spirit, 
to bring us where we enter the twofold life of princely 
power with God, and princely intercession for other 
souls, and the student of Scripture will notice, in those 
places where we are called "a royal priesthood, " and 
"kings and priests unto God," it is in connection 
with the work of sanctification. There are vast mul- 
titudes of believers in every age who serve God in a 
lower order of divided power, as in the Jewish econ- 
omy, but to be among those who form the Bride of the 
Lamb it is essential that we be lifted into the union of 
spiritual power, where all the princely and priestly 
functions are both combined, as in the case of Jesus 
and Melchisedec. 

4. The last point of superiority is, that the 



1 6 THE ORDER OF MELCHISEDEC. 

Melchisedecian priesthood was instituted with an 
oath. "If perfection were by the Levitical priesthood, 
what further need was there for another priesthood 
after the order of Melchisedec? ,, Verse 2. Proving 
the whole argument was for Christian perfection. 

We are told in verse 21 that the Levitical priests 
were made without an oath, but the Melchisedecian 
order was made "with an oath." This oath is nothing 
more or less than that entire and irreversible con- 
secration to the eternal will of God which no one but 
a child of God can make, and by which, according to 
Moses, there is a double avouchment. We avouch 
ourselves to be utterly and everlastingly the Lord's, 
and he avouches himself to be our everlasting God. 
Deut. xxvi: 17. A man can be born and grow up to 
be a citizen without taking any oath of allegiance, but 
when he joins the army, and unites the office of a 
soldier to that of a citizen it must needs be with an 
oath, because the very idea of soldier implies laying 
down one's life and requires a degree of loyalty great- 
er than that of mere citizenship. Conversion makes 
us citizens of God's kingdom, and the sanctifying 
baptism of the Spirit constitutes us soldiers, but we 
enter this higher rank of loyalty with an oath of 
eternal fidelity. This is the order of Melchisedec. 



THE AWFULNESS OF SIN. 1 7 

III. 

THE AWFULNESS OF SIN. 

We are living in a world of sin, so enveloped by it 
and have been so possessed by it, and so accustomed 
to its innumerable manifestations, that it is impossible 
for us to form any adequate conception of its utter 
horribleness and wretchedness while we live in this 
world. And even when we are cleansed entirely from 
it, and so filled with divine love that every form and 
expression of sin gives us a loathsome heart-sickness 
against it, we still fail to apprehend all its enormity. 

We can mark our progress in holiness by our 
feelings toward sin. At first we turn away from the 
effects of sin, then we dislike its outward manifesta- 
tions in crimes and injuries, then we get tired and 
disgusted with the inward principle of sin, then as our 
light increases we revolt from the finer shades of sin 
that come out in what passes for innocent amuse- 
ment and gavety of human nature; farther on we de- 
tect its almost infinite virus, then we discern in finer 
degrees the universality of its poison and its implac- 
able enmity to God, then we are drawn into an abiding 
heart sickness toward the very essence of the least sin, 
until having to live in a sinful world becomes a con- 
stant sorrow of spirit. To form some idea of the 
enormity of sin, let us look at the following items : 

I. Get before the mind a picture of all the hor- 



1 8 THE AWFUI.NKSS OF SIN. 

rible sins which are being committed every day in 
the world, the millions of crimes of every known 
variety which are embraced in the three classes, those 
which are earthly, and those which are sensual, and 
those which are devilish; think of the billions of 
*oes, pains, degradations, that these sins are causing., 
and yet this horrible picture does not give the hor- 
ribleness of sin. For only think that all these effects 
flow from the bitter fountain of sin that lies in human 
souls, and this unseen fountain of iniquity in human 
hearts and minds is capable of producing all these 
outward sins and crimes, in a million fold, through- 
out all eternity. The mere fact is beyond all our 
imagination. 

2. Have we begun to estimate the appalling 
corruption of human nature in its implicit hatred to 
God. This hatred to our ever blessed Creator, Pre- 
server, and Redeemer is very seldom explicitly 
stated in so many words, but it lies implicitly coiled 
in every natural heart, like a venomous rattlesnake, 
ready when occasion requires to turn in bitterness 
against its best friend. , See how God is ignored by 
the mass of men in their writings, their business, their 
politics, their conversation, their thoughts, and plans, 
how the very thought of God is pushed as far away 
as possible. Notice how people in any mixed com- 
pany seem embarrassed and even irritated at the 
very mention of God's name, or his character or his 
service. The very sight of God's commandments, or 



THK AWFULNESS OF SIN. 1 9 

a disclosure of his sovereignty, seems to enrage the 
most of mankind, and they manifest their secret 
hatred to God toy improprieties of language or some 
ugh behavior. 

Notice the facility in which human nature, in a 
sly way, denounces God, blames him with all ill, 
criticises his providence, seems to take a fiendish 
delight in misquoting and perverting the plain teach- 
ings of his word. If you carefully watch the aver- 
age man he will in various ways manifest enough 
hatred to God in one week, that if the same amount 
of hatred was manifested by any one toward himself 
he would think it an outrage. Even converted peo- 
ple, not yet perfectly purified, will have spells of 
peevishness against God, which if thoroughly an- 
alyzed is nothing less than implicit hatred to his 
character, or government, for just as long as the 
carnal mind remains in the soul it is enmity against 
God. 

3. Look at the subjective ruin that sin produces 
in our nature. See its effect upon our hearts, cor- 
rupting every affection, perverting the desires, be- 
getting a restless hanker for excessive gratification, 
for unlawful things, making self the center, and want- 
ing to twist everything in life in some manner to the 
gratifying, the magnifying, the exalting of self. 
See its work in the mind, clouding the perceptions, 
blotting out clear distinctions between right and 
wrong, perverting the reason, stultifying the judg- 



20 THK AWFULNESS OF SIN. 

inent, intoxicating and polluting the imagination, 
dragging all the mental faculties from the sweet play 
in the sunshine of God's truth to gross and ruinous 
exercises. What a wreck it has wrought in the will, 
filling it with rebellion against pure law, impatience 
of restraint, instability of holy purpose, vacillation 
and weakness of holy decision. .The heart, mind and 
will is the trinity in the soul, corresponding to the 
Father, Son and Spirit, and created to live in blessed 
union with those Divine Persons, but sin turns all 
these powers into a trinity of hell. 

4. Another terrible trait of sin is its facility of 
blending itself with sickness, and through manifold 
diseases of the body working against grace. Notice 
how when the body is diseased the mind becomes 
depressed, faith is enfeebled, the will loses its courage, 
the spirituality even of good people seems to pass un- 
der a cloud. It is in times of broken-down physical 
conditions that the devil makes his harvest time of 
tempting and troubling God's children, as if sick- 
ness was Satan's pasture for his black angels to feed 
upon. This proves sin and sickness to be twin 
brothers. 

5. If we investigate the extent of sin we find 
that it penetrates to every part of man, and to every 
expression of his being in looks, tones and gestures, 
to the deepest fountains of his inner spirit, and then 
spreads itself out like a muddy Mississippi over all 
the banks of human nature, deluging the animal king- 



THE AWFULNESS OF SIN. 21 

dorn, causing the dumb brutes to partake of its con- 
duct, and lifting itself into the very frame work of 
nature in abnormal storms and floods and drouths, 
and then soaking itself down into the soil of the earth, 
preventing the ground from yielding its full harvest, 
and poisoning the seed .germs into 'briars and thorns. 

O, what will it be to enter a bright, beautiful 
world, where there are no sinners or sin, and where 
the smell of sin cannot be detected in all its products, 
or in the sweet movement of its musical seasons and 
mechanism. In this respect we are like children born 
and raised in a dark, damp coal mine, and we have no 
measurements of the unutterable thrill of the blessed- 
ness it will be to be lifted into the sun-bright flower 
gardens of a spotless world, where everything will 
only be some form of the variegated splendor and 
sweetness of infinite love. 

6. Another trait of sin is its extreme deceitful- 
ness and subtlety. It can steal into the finest crevices 
of life, and in a thousand ways blend itself with things 
that are good and harmless of themselves. It insin- 
uates itself into art, and science, and eloquence, and 
music, and smiles, and social affections, and flowers, 
and a taste for the beautiful; it sneaks into every 
avenue of business, and government, and legislation; 
it seeks to put a poison into every blossom, and a 
pain into every joy, and self-seeking into every lofty 
motive. No one, less than God, can search out its 
infinite refinements and burn out its venom. 



22 THE AWFULNESS OF SIN, 

7. Sin grows with horrible rapidity. It is like 
certain poisonous or vile insects that multiply with 
incredible speed. See how fast sin gets hold of every 
power of the soul and body. When even spiritual 
people have imperceptible leakages of grace and be- 
gin to backslide, with what lightning velocity evil can 
grow in them, and how quickly they may become 
seized upon and controlled by demons. How rapid- 
ly sin will develop in young persons, and more swift- 
ly in this age than ever in the world, making multi- 
tudes of them old and hardened in sin before they 
grow a beard. See how in a few years any one pas- 
sion will absolutely despotise a person, and if people 
were allowed to live for a century or two, with these 
inconceivable growths in sin, what monsters in in- 
iquity men would become. Think of one man living 
in New York, to only an average age, under a bound- 
less passion for money, getting possession, within 
just a few years, of over two hundred million dollars, 
one of the greatest sums of wealth ever acquired by 
any one person since the world was made. If that 
man had lived two centuries would he not have man- 
aged to steal the globe? 

The same idea is true of every one of the pas- 
sions. Hence short life is an infinite mercy with such 
rapid possibilities of sin. Awful as these facts are, 
they prove the unlimited capabilities of the soul, for 
surely God never created us for sin, and it must be 
abnormal to us, whereas we were fashioned for holi- 



HOW TO DIE TO SRLF. 23 

ness; and if our nature has such facilities for what is 
unnatural to us, shall we not have much greater fa- 
cilities in the spotless and boundless love of God. 
which is the proper soil and clime of our creation? 
Even sin itself preaches eloquently to us of the neces- 
sity and blessedness of being holy and harmless and 
undefiled, like our blessed Jesus, and that our only 
true home is in the bosom of God, and our only true 
estate is to be flooded with his love. 



IV. 

HOW TO DIE TO SELF. 

Many deeply spiritual persons who allow their 
faith to be molded by the words of Scripture, and by 
the illumination of the Holy Spirit, instead of a nar- 
row human theology, are clearly convinced that there 
is a real death to self which comes after the work of 
sanctification. 

They detect many manifestations of the creature 
life, which are not clearly sinful on the one side, nor 
yet really Christ-like on the other side, but a middle 
zone of creaturely activity and self, which the Spirit 
shows them must foe passed beyond or crucified, in 
order to reach deep abiding union with God, where 
there is "none of self and all of Christ Jesus." The 
very persons who deny this state of grace, are the 



24 HOW TO DIE TO SKI.F. 

ones who most positively manifest in manifold ways 
their need of being dead to self. I am writing this not 
for those who have any theory to maintain, but for 
the humble and simple-hearted saints who really hun- 
ger to sink out of self into God. I remark in the first 
place, that there are some false notions as to how to 
die to self. 

One false notion is, the conceiving of a wrong 
hatred to ourselves. The more we are divinely illu- 
minated the more minutely and astonishingly do we 
apprehend the almost infinite blindness, foolishness 
and meanness of our past lives. Unless we are kept 
very mellow and subdued, this sight of our meanness 
may tempt us to form a 'bitter, revengful feeling to- 
ward ourselves, and under such an impression, we 
may feel like punishing ourselves in some unnatural 
way, or -by the making of unscriptural and rash vows. 
This is the source of cruel and unnatural penances. 

Another false notion is the choosing of some line 
of mortification for ourselves, or the selection of some 
special cross. This will defeat the very end we want 
to attain, which is the loss of our will in all things. 
But the very act of choosing a cross for ourselves 
keeps alive our own preferences and furnishes a secret 
nourishment to self-will, and furnishes a little place 
for self to live under the very pretext of dying to self. 

Another erroneous view is that we can sink to a 
deeper death by over work, by engaging ourselves to 
a heavier task than we can reasonably accomplish, and 



HOW TO DIE TO SELF. 25 

even if the extra work be of the most religious kind, 
still it supplies a field for self- activity. It is in this re- 
spect that St. Paul speaks of persons under a false 
zeal, going to every extreme of self-imposed poverty, 
and even burning at the stake, yet all under the prin- 
ciple of self-action, and not that complete abnegation 
of self which is caused by being entirely possessed by 
divine love. 

Another false notion is that we are to indolently 
leave ourselves to the mere law of development, and 
if we can only be kept from well defined sins, we are 
not to tax ourselves with anything deeply spiritual, 
but leave ourselves to grow without a diligent at- 
tention to growth. This is the opposite error from 
some of the foregoing. It is to be feared that this 
last error is the one that most persons drift into. But 
now let us face the real question, how to die to self, 
and let Christ be all and all in us. In the first place, 
do we really believe such a state is attainable? Have 
we looked at the blessed Christ until we have obtained 
a clear conception of what it is to lose ourselves in 
union with him? Have our spiritual eyes surveyed 
this blessed possibility, until its attainability in this 
life has become a settled conviction with us? Then 
have we calmly, deeply, irreversibly settled it that 
there shall be none of self and all of Christ. Are we 
prepared to make that the motto of our lives, do we 
think it, dream it, pray it, breathe it, drink of it, bathe 
ourselves in it, until it becomes a subtle, steady, all- 



26 HOW TO DIE TO SELF. 

prevailing passion in our minds, none of self and all 
of Jesus? As we tread this golden shore, let us go 
slow and walk softly on these shining sands ; let us 
not launch out in those fathomless waters without 
duly counting the cost and without ample ballast in 
our ships. If we have determined to make this ce- 
lestial excursion entirely out of self into the depths of 
the divine nature, let us remember that the first step 
toward this perfect death is to have a pure divine 
motive, and that motive must (be nothing less than the 
ever blessed triune God himself, that is, it must be 
the seeking of God as our all and in all, our last end, 
our exceeding great reward, so that it will be for his 
glory, his beauty, and praise, through us, and by 
us, and that we have no desire to exist except as a 
channel for his outflow, a chosen vessel for the em- 
bodiment of his life, and the outbeaming of his glo- 
rious attributes through us. The deepest death to 
self lies in the motives and intentions, hence this all- 
consuming motive to want to be nothing but a ca- 
pacity for Christ to live in, lies at the foundation of 
the death of self, and the highest life of Christ. With 
this pure motive fixed in the heart, we are to habitu- 
ally and willingly accept of every occasion for humil- 
iation and self-abasement, which God's providence 
brings to us. While on the one hand we are neither 
to make or seek a cross, on the other hand we are to 
sweetly and willingly accept of every blow, or morti- 
fication, or inconvenience, or painful annoyance, 



HOW TO DIE TO SELF. 27 

which comes to us in the order of God's providental 
will. Humiliation is the very quintessence of the 
Christ-life, and we must appreciate every opportunity 
of sinking into humility. Hence when reproaches, 
unkind treatment, poverty, loneliness, persecution, 
mental distresses, seeming failure in our work, dis- 
appointments, deep perplexities, or any disagreeable 
thing comes to us, if we are in a state of divine recol- 
lection, we are to calmly face these things, as appro- 
priate occasions for losing our own will and letting 
the omnipotence of God take charge of them, and 
we can thereby in these humiliations be more delicate- 
ly and firmly knit to the will of God. 

Another effectual method of dying to self is to be 
exceedingly careful not to receive human honors or 
praise into our hearts. 

If we are worthy of having enemies, who will seek 
opportunities of humiliating us, we will also have some 
friends who will love and honor us; and, as a rule, the 
more bitter our enemies are, the stronger our friends 
will love us, and there will be times when we will be 
honored in spite of ourselves. But if we open our 
hearts to receive this honor and in our thoughts feed 
upon it as a social honey, or if we allow human praise 
to inflate our thoughts, it will instantly breed a human 
self-esteem, and this becomes a hot-bed of the self-life. 
It requires great humiliation and divine reconcil- 
iation for evangelists, preachers, holiness teachers, and 
singers, and writers, not to lose the Christ-life at this 



28 HOW TO DIE TO SELF. 

point. Another step in the death of self is to seek in 
everything to be child-like, and extremely simple in 
our manners, words, dress, tastes, and interior expe- 
riences. 

Self naturally feeds on complexity and things 
grand and large and loud, but Christ is the very em- 
bodiment of divine and eternal simplicity. The deep- 
er we sink into the Christ-life, the more we become 
disappointing to the people; our learning, or talents, 
will not show off to such fine advantage. We talk less, 
we live more quietly, and interiorly, our labors are less 
ostentatious. We do more hard fighting with fewer 
dress-parades. We bring things to pass through 
prayers and faith in God more than by outward showy 
methods. We love to live like God, a profound hid- 
den life, in which people think we don't amount to 
very much. This is one of the tests of sinking out of 
self. 

Another step in the death of self is the living more 
keenly by pure faith, depending less on all spiritual 
phenomena, and the clear apprehension by pure 
faith that the three persons of the Godhead possess 
and pervade us, and that every atom of our lives is in 
the grasp of his will, and that by a perpetual act of 
entire abandonment we are by the simple act of believ- 
ing most blessedly united in the deep of our being to 
the Father, Son and Holy Ghost. 

Whenever we enter a new and higher region in 
the Christ-life, there will be some distinguished marks 



HOW TO DIE TO SELF. 29 

of grace, some memorable and blessed manifestations 
of the Holy Spirit, working within us, in the shape of 
conscious fulness, or a flow of sweetness, or spoken 
words, or bright mental illuminations, or prophetic 
premonitions, or abounding joy; some gracious phe- 
nomena, which will serve as a memorial, or a spiritual 
land-mark; and to linger too much on these things, or 
to rest on them, will furnish a refined nourishment of 
the self-life. Hence the deepest conformity to Jesus 
will lead us to be weaned from ecstacies, and bright in- 
ward lights, which are very essential in their place; 
but to be constantly drinking the Christ-life by an act 
of pure faith is the path to the deepest death of self. 

Another way of dying to self is to thoughtfully 
avoid making our religious life an unnecessary bur- 
den, or cross, or tax, to our families and loved ones. 
Sometimes those who want to be real Christ-like, for 
lack of wisdom, adopt some mode of life, or devotion, 
or theory of sanctity, which is a source of positive 
peevishness and disagreeableness to those with whom 
they live. This is exactly opposite to Christ, and 
feeds self instead of killing it. We should seek to be 
yielding, and pliant, obliging and accommodating. 

In all non-essentials, where a well defined prin- 
ciple of right is not involved we must surrender our 
little choices and tastes and ease, for the well pleasing 
and gratification of others. To be rigid and stub- 
born on non-essentials is simply self-righteousness, 
and a stronghold of self. 



30 JESUS AND MOSES. 

Lastly, in everything we are to seek our nothing- 
ness and the allness of God. This is to become a 
daily habit of our motives and intentions, to distrust 
ourselves, to ignore our own wisdom, to look to 
Christ for the most minute guidance that we may be 
one in all things. 



V. 

JESUS AND MOSES. 



One night recently while lying awake and en- 
gaged in mental prayer in the quietness of midnight, I 
got to meditating on Jesus and Moses, and the simi- 
larity in their lives, and yearning that I might be sunk 
down into the fathomless meekness and gentleness of 
spirit which was in those blessed characters. In a few 
moments the Holy Ghost opened to my mind as in a 
vista or panorama the most remarkable parallel 
in the lives of Jesus and Moses; and the 
word's quoted by Stephen in his burning speech, 
recorded in the 7th of Acts, that Jesus was 
to be a prophet like unto Moses, was unfold- 
ed with startling beauty and an immensity of 
significance and a minuteness of detail which fairly 
bewildered me. The following items of comparison in 
their lives and ministry was forcibly shown to me one 



JESUS AND MOSKS. 31 

by one. I have never seen in print or heard from any 
one these points of similarity 'before, and I give them 
to you just as the Spirit gave them to me. 

1. In their infancy, they were both under the 
ban of death. Moses was born at a time when there 
was a cruel edict to kill the Hebrew male children. 
And soon after the birth of Jesus Herod issued an or- 
der for the slaughter of the male infants of Bethlehem. 
So they both began life under the awful shadow of 
assassination. 

2. They were both admired in their infancy by 
royalty The wise men who came to hunt for the in- 
fant Jesus were very probably pious old kings from the 
far east. 

This is the tradition of the Church and the early 
fathers, and the word "wise" should be "great men," 
or more literally "majestic men." And when Moses 
was looked upon by Pharaoh's daughter she instantly 
loved him. 

One version tells us that the infant Moses was 
"very fair," but the Greek says when he was born "he 
was beautiful to God," and God made the royal 
daughter to be smitten with his infant charms. So 
the singular thing occurs that while both infants were 
under a royal edict of murder, both of them were 
loved and admired by royalty. 

3. Both of their infant lives were protected by 
the kingdom of Egypt. Little Moses, in spite of the 
death warrant against him, found a sheltering place 



32 JESUS AND MOSES. 

under the very crown that had ordered him to be 
killed, and God providentially arranged for the infant 
Jesus to be protected by the same government from 
the rage of Herod. How this subtle and wide sweep- 
ing network of God's providences should impress us 
with his omniscient care. 

4. They were both trained by their mothers for 
great and special work. How perfect was the wis- 
dom of God in arranging for Moses's mother to be his 
nurse and teacher. She must have been an extraor- 
dinary woman, deeply taught of God, and she diligent- 
ly poured all the traits of her character into her child. 
And while we have no sympathy with Romish Ma- 
riolatry, yet I have no doubt 'but the mother of Jesus 
stands at the head of all the women of humanity, and 
on the other side the boy Jesus received the most per- 
fect maternal training of any one who has lived. 
God mysteriously blends the material and the super- 
natural, the human and the divine, in all these mat- 
ters of special training for special service. 

5. In both Moses and Jesus there was a divine 
passion, an all-consuming enthusiasm to deliver and 
save the Hebrew race. 

It is evident that Moses manifested from his 
youth an ardent interest in his people, and as soon as 
he could he began to exert himself in their defense. 
And the boy Jesus had such an overflowing zeal 
for the spiritual deliverance of his people that it broke 
loose like a cataract at twelve years of age. 



JESUS AND MOSES. 33 

6. They were both rejected by their people for 
whom they had such love and zeal. This is the one 
strong point of comparison which Stephen cites in 
his address. Jesus was crucified and buried by the 
Jews under sanction of Roman law. And so Moses 
was virtually crucified in being rejected by his people, 
when at forty years of age he offered to be their deliv- 
erer. 

And just as in killing Jesus, they used the political 
power to kill him, so the Hebrews, in rejecting Moses, 
threatened to use against him the very political power 
under which they were oppressed. In both cases the 
Jews were living under the oppression of a foreign 
power which they used against their leaders. 

7. In both cases, after being rejected and cru- 
cified, they left their people and went up to God. Mo- 
ses went to Mt. Horeb, which is distinctively called 
"the mountain of God," and lived a life hid with God, a 
life of quietness and rest and great intercession of 
prayer for his people. And so Jesus went up to the 
right hand of the Father, where he is interceding for 
his people, still pleading for the very race that cruci- 
fied him, and quietly resting in the divine sunlight of 
the heavenly Mt. Horeb until the very people that re- 
jected him shall be humble enough to be his footstool. 

8. When Moses returned to his people in Egypt 
he did not go in weakness or humiliation, but with the 
tread of a universal monarch and with the rod of mi- 
raculous and manifold power, and clothed with the 



34 JESUS AND MOSES. 

authority of Almighty God to scourge the Egyptians 
and to overwhelmingly convince his own people. In 
exactly the same way when the Gentile age is up, 
typified by the forty years' absence of Moses, Jesus will 
descend from the mountain of God, not in humiliation 
and grief, but with absolute and overwhelming author- 
ity to scourge all the sinners in the world, to let loose 
the ten plagues of the great tribulations, and to prove 
himself the Almighty God to his own people, both of 
the Jews and Gentiles. The rod that Moses used in 
scourging Egypt is a perfect type of the "rod of iron" 
which is so often spoken of in connection with the sec- 
ond coming of Jesus. Rev. 2:27. 

9. When Moses returned to Egypt it was to 
gather out the elect of the Lord and take them up in- 
to God's country, and at the same time severely pun- 
ish the wicked Egyptians. The divine sword which 
he handled had a salvation edge for the people of God 
and a damnation edge for the sinners. 

This was exactly the prophecy concerning Jesus 
at his second coming with a two-eged sword. Rev. 
1 :i6. 'He will gather out the elect who are converted, 
sanctified and filled with the Holy Spirit, and raise 
from the dead those who in their life time were quali- 
fied to be among the hundred and forty-four thousand 
and gather them up into the mountain of the air, and 
when he thus gathers out his elect who have his own 
likeness in them, all the nations of the earth will be 
left with unutterable trouble and anguish in every 



JESUS AND MOSES. 35 

single family, like the Egyptians, who were mourning 
over their dead in every house, while the happy Jews 
were rejoicing under the pillar of fire. 

10. There is a remarkable incident recorded, 
where Moses and his officers and the seventy elders 
of Israel, which were representative of their whole 
body, went up into the mount of God and saw an 
open vision of the God of Israel, with his feet resting 
upon a glittering sapphire pavement, and in that mar- 
velous interview with Jehovah, they partook of a feast 
— ate and drank in God's presence. Ex. xxiv: 9-1 1. 
This is a clear, prophetic type, that when Jesus 
gathers out his saints from this Egypt-like earth into 
the mountains of the air, there will then take place 
the beatific vision of God and the banquet of the mar- 
riage of the Lamb, which is so abundantly spoken of 
by Christ in his parables, and so definitely described 
in the Songs of Solomon, and the 19th of Revelation. 
So in this respect there is a perfect likeness between 
Moses and Jesus. While the elders returned back 
to the camp, Moses remained shut in with God forty 
days and forty nights, and it is likely that the mar- 
riage supper will last forty years. 

While Moses was thus in the glory of God the 
land of Egypt was writhing in anguish under God's 
judgments; the effects of their sin. In like manner, 
while Jesus and his elect are at their banquet, the 
nations of the earth will be passing through the great 
tribulations. The student will please study the two 



36 JESUS AND MOSES. 

suppers in Revelation 19, one in glory with the Lamb 
and the other a supper of fowls, i. e., devils feasting 
on the slaughter of war among the nations of the 
earth; and both taking place at the same time. 

Thus Moses being wrapped in glory, while Egypt 
was wrapped in woe, will be repeated in that prophet 
who is like unto Moses, and with the impenitent 
nations like unto Egypt. 

11. Moses formed the Hebrew people into a 
most beautiful, organized and portable city, with 
three tribes on the north, three on the east, three on 
the south and three on the west, and in the large hol- 
low square he constructed the matchless tabernacle 
in which God lived, and from that divine center, out- 
ward along the avenues to the outskirts of the camp, 
every detail was arranged with wondrous symmetry 
and beauty; every tribe and family and man being ar- 
ranged in his appropriate place. This same thing will 
be repeated when the Lord Jesus gathers unto himself 
those who are qualified to be among the hundred and 
forty and four thousand, and in the mountain of the 
air, he will arrange in everlasting order and beauty 
the sanctified millions that will compose the New Je- 
rusalem, giving to each one his proper locality in the 
organic army, and the standing that each one will 
have in that the living structure. 

12. Moses, having organized his portable liv- 
ing city, began moving right to Canaan, with a view 
of taking absolute possession of its territory, extermin- 



JESUS AND MOSES. 37 

ating its incorrigible sinners, spreading the twelve 
out over that fair land; and through them God de- 
signed to evangelize, subdue and govern every nation 
on earth. You will find this conception amply con- 
firmed by the marvelous promises in Deuteronomy, 
that if the Hebrews obeyed God, his plan was to 
make them "the head of all nations and not the tail/ 9 
and they should be a kingdom of princes and priests 
over all nations. 

We all know their great failure, but the Lord Je- 
sus will not fail ; and after organizing the bridehood of 
the Lamb into that immortal army and living city, so 
often spoken of in Scripture, he will descend from 
the mountains of God to that same Palestine and stand 
with his elect on Mt. Zion and take absolute control 
of this world, and the members of his glorified bride- 
hood will be scattered through all the earth to insti- 
tute his millennial reign, and to superintend with in- 
flexible authority the minutest welfare of all mankind. 

O, the vastness and beauty of God's design! I 
cannot intimate in cold print the splendor of this an- 
alogy, as the Spirit opened it up to my mind, but I 
have a cloudless conviction that all will be fulfilled. 
If seven of these points have already proved correct, 
so the other five will be. 



38 LEARNING SPIRITUAL LESSONS. 

VI. 

LEARNING SPIRITUAL LESSONS. 

It is impossible for us to conceive the grandeur 
of having an infinite and ever blessed God for our con- 
stant teacher, to apprehend ourselves as little frail 
creatures, going to school to limitless Knowledge, 
cloudless Light, and boundless Love. As our Cre- 
ator, Preserver, and Savior, what multiplied lessons 
has he to teach us, through his providence, his 
word, his Spirit, and how often we have to learn the 
same lessons over and over again, from every angle 
of vision, in varying degrees of light and shade, in 
multiplied forms of joy and sorrow, in manifold rela- 
tions of society and solitude. 

The word "disciple" signifies a learner, and to be 
a true disciple covers the entire range of religious life, 
from its infancy to glorification. There are three 
kinds of knowledge, the physical, intellectual, and 
spiritual. We acquire material knowledge through 
our senses, coming in contact with eternal objects. 
We obtain intellectual knowledge by the exercise of 
reason, preception, memory and judgment. We learn 
spiritual things through the operation of revealed truth 
and the agency of the inner spiritual being, the con- 
science, the affections and the will. 

Spiritual knowledge is of two kinds, that which is 
revealed by instantaneous flashes of the Spirit upon 



LEARNING SPIRITUAL LESSONS. 39 

our spiritual understanding, and that which we learn 
by oft repeated experiences of the action of God's dis- 
cipline and truth upon our spiritual faculties. The 
Scriptures speak of a great many things as being re- 
vealed to us, as "having Christ revealed in us," and 
"having the arm of the Lord revealed to us." They 
speak of other things as having to learn them, as 
"learning the meek and lowly heart of Jesus," "learn- 
ing in whatever state we are therewith to be content." 

Laban "learned that God blessed him for Jacob's 
sake." The revelations of the Holy Ghost to us are 
flashed directly upon our spiritual intuitions, and are 
always instantaneous, and are independent of the ac- 
tion of our five senses, and far beyond our slow pro- 
cess of reasoning; they are pre-eminently supernat- 
ural. 

But in learning spiritual lessons, there is the gen- 
tle interblending of our spiritual intuitions with the ac- 
tion of our intellectual faculties, of memory, judgment, 
comparison, and analysis. This action of our mental 
powers of divine things accounts for the slowness of 
our learning, and for the necessity of having the same 
lessons to go over and over again, until the whole 
mind has been spiritualized, and brought under the 
sweet and luminous control of the indwelling Holy 
Spirit. This is what Paul refers to by having our 
"thoughts and imaginations" such as the building of 
air castles, curiosity, excursive reasonings, and such 
like, " brought in perfect subjection to Christ." The 



40 LEARNING SPIRITUAL LESSONS. 

learning of these things is a very different thing from 
the instantaneous works of regeneration and sanctifi- 
cation, and is reached by repeated interior crucifix- 
ions, and by divine habits of mental prayer, and the 
recollection of the divine presence. The general rule 
of learning spiritual lessons is by contrasts, the bring- 
ing together of opposite extremes; as, we are told, the 
movement of the delicate machinery in a watch is pro- 
duced by putting it first into a freezing and then a 
burning temperature, and then back and forth, until 
the machinery sweetly behaves itself in either extreme 
of temperature. This thought of learning by abrupt 
and sharply defined extremes is the very one Paul 
mentions, when he learned how to be abased, and how 
to abound, how to suffer hunger, and how to be filled, 
how to sleep on a bed of down in a palace, and on a 
hard board in a barbarian's hut; and by these sharp 
contrasts he learned to die equally to both, and the 
delicate mechanism of his spiritual life kept unvarying 
time in all zones and temperatures. This thought of 
spiritual contrast is the key by which we can unlock 
nearly all the lessons of the spiritual life. 

When Christ is going to teach us a lesson of the 
riches of his inner nature, or of the enormous wealth 
of his imparted life to us, he will lead us around 
through a desert place, and by a combination of in- 
ward and outward circumstances show us our utter 
poverty and destitution of nature, until in our inner- 
most being we feel poor and pinched, and pale and 



LEARNING SPIRITUAL LESSONS. 4 1 

pauperfied. Then there will soon open to us such a 
mine of spiritual wealth, bright, glittering thought, 
sparkling gems of holy desire, soft and sweet attrac- 
tions of pure love, a smooth glassy flow of peace, 
glowing expansions of hope, exquisite magnetisms in 
the divine personalities, until it seems we are walking 
through mines of gold and rubies, and feel so rich in 
God that we want to give away millions of blessings 
to the starving souls around us. 

When we are to learn some great lesson of faith, 
it will be preceded by having our little faith tested to 
its uttermost. God will allow r Satan to throw a 
strange darkness around the mind, and for a time his 
black wings will shut out the sun, moon and stars, and 
along with this a great many things in our outward 
circumstances will miscarry, our most solid expecta- 
tions will fail to materialize ; God's great, broad, bright 
promises seem to have an indistinct and awkward ap- 
pearance, while regiments of difficulties, like armed 
cavalry, charge down upon us. Amid this storm in 
the outward phenomena, and the dull gloom upon the 
mental faculties, faith will act like a little ship in a 
heavy sea. It groans in every fiber, and slowly climbs 
the waves, it careens away over, as if it would surely 
capsize. A mast may snap, and a few ropes get 
broken. 

Then we consent to make death reckonings, and 
reach the point of "though he slay me" yet I will not 
doubt his love. In a short time we find the billows 



42 LEARNING SPIRITUAL LESSONS. 

smoothing clown, the cloud lifts, the wind changes 
and it seems that every power within us takes on a be- 
lieving frame. Faith seems to spread itself out in a 
bright, victorious extravagance through all the soul. 
We can then not only believe all the written promises, 
but also the secretly whispered ones which the Holy 
Ghost pronounces in the depths of our spirits. We 
seem so full of faith that we wonder why it should ever 
have groaned and struggled so in the storm. 

In taking deeper degrees in humility the soul is led 
through horrible temptations, and disgusting morti- 
fications. In one sense it is dangerous to pray for the 
very deepest humility, unless the soul is strong enough 
for extraordinary trials and mortifications of various 
kinds. 

It is related that George Whitefield, on his way 
to America was led to pray the Lord to fill him with 
great humility of spirit. In a few days he was seized 
with most vile and terrible temptations, which greatly 
agitated the mental appetences, and convulsed his sen- 
sibilities, till he was almost on the verge of despair; and 
before they passed away he loathed himself, and 
looked upon himself as the most detestable wretch on 
earth, and all other people seemed good and heavenly 
compared with himself. But he learned his lesson, 
and came through with the consciousness of his utter 
littleness and frailty, which is the very essence of per- 
fect humility. This is the curriculum through which 
the very lowliest minded saints have passed. 



LEARNING SPIRITUAL LESSONS. 43 

What shall I say of learning the lesson of love, 
bright faced, large eyed, mild featured, sweet voiced, 
soft toned, gentle spirited, long suffering, noncombat- 
ive, summer breathing, boundless love? That love 
which constitutes the essence of heaven, the quality 
of religion, and the focalizing of all the graces in one 
must not only be imparted to us by a supernatural act 
of the Holy Ghost, but wrought out into every part of 
our life. And this requires the learning of love's les- 
son over and over, deeper and deeper. 

When the Holy Spirit opens a new chapter of love 
in our nature he permits our affections to be sorely 
taxed, with things which are just the opposite of love. 
He permits most cruel misunderstandings, unexplain- 
able coldness, harsh treatment, the seeming or rea! 
loss of old friendships, heartless and uncalled for be- 
trayals of tender heart confidences; sometimes actual 
and severe cruelties upon the body, or estate, or repu- 
tation. All sorts of unlovely and painful things occur, 
to test what love we have, to make us see whether we 
have the pure, gentle, unlimited charity of Christ, that 
we thought we had. 

Love is a sweet mantle of pure linen, and if there 
be any cotton or woolen threads mixed up with it they 
will scorch and burn in the fiery furnace of love's test- 
ings, and when our charity for all mankind is going 
through the flame, we can tell by the smell of burnt 
wool whether our love is all pure linen or not. Mere 
human love is wool, God's love is asbestos linen, and 



44 LEARNING SPIRITUAL LESSONS. 

utterly indestructible. The more it is burned, the 
broader and sweeter it gets. Just after passing 
through some long and terrific strain upon pure love, 
it comes out into a broad ocean of mildness and ten- 
derness inexpressible; it is then vast enough to man- 
tle the world round and round with its compassionate, 
sympathizing, forgiving and pitying folds. 

There is another peculiar lesson in the spiritual 
life, which I may call periodical enlargement. There 
will come seasons when everything in our life seems 
put in a narrow place. Our experience, our view of 
things, our interior play of spirit, our outward circum- 
stances, socially or financially, our avocations and in- 
dustries, the utility of our gifts, all seem cramped, and 
as the days and weeks go by, we seem to be pushing 
through an ever narrowing place, till we feel in a num- 
ber of ways so cramped, as St. Paul says, "pressed be- 
yond measure/' until we have the feeling of being lit- 
erally tied hand and foot, straight-laced and gagged. 
But when this phenomenon of experience reaches its 
extremity, suddenly the cords that bound us are 
snapped, or quietly untied, and we find the whole at- 
mosphere of things changed. Without any effort, we 
find ourselves in a wide place, all our inner restraint 
expands into the sweetest liberty, gloomy circum- 
stances put on bright faces, forgotten friends unex- 
pectedly turn up, our industries and financial matters 
move as if oiled, social things assume their old-fash- 
ioned cheerfulness, the sky is blue, and it seems so 
easy to live and grow and fulfil our mission. 



TENDERNESS OF SPIRIT. 45 

All these various lessons, and a great many more, 
have to be learned over and over again. The initial 
Christian learns them in faint degrees, and the purified 
and perfect believer goes through them many times, 
and from many standpoints, until he becomes familiar 
with the methods of his heavenly Teacher, and can 
tell at the beginning of each lesson what the glorious 
outcome will be. 



VII. 

TENDERNESS OF SPIRIT. 

It is much easier to convince a human soul of its 
natural impurity than to convince it of its natural hard- 
ness, and utter destitution of heavenly and divine ten- 
derness of Spirit. The very essence of the gospel is 
a divinely imparted tenderness and sweetness of 
Spirit. Without this, even the strongest religious life 
is a misrepresentation of the true Christ-life. Even 
among intensely religious people, nothing is more 
rare to find than a continuous, all-pervading spirit of 
tenderness. 

i. Tenderness of spirit is preeminently divine. 
It is not the delicacy and soft sensibility of a mere gen- 
tle make-up of body and mind, which some persons 
naturally possess in a high degree. Neither is it the ten- 
derness of mind and manner, which results from high 



46 TENDERNESS OF SPIRIT. 

culture and beautiful social training, though these are 
very valuable in life. But it is a supernatural work 
throughout the whole spiritual being. It is an ex- 
quisite interior fountain of God's own sweetness and 
tenderness of nature, opened up in the inner spirit to 
such a degree that it completely inundates the soul, 
overflowing all the mental faculties, and saturating 
with its sweet waters the manners, expressions, words, 
and tones of the voice: mellowing the will, softening 
the judgments, melting the affections, refining the 
manners, and moulding the whole being after the im- 
age of him who was infinitely meek and lowly in heart. 
It cannot be borrowed, or put on for special occasions ; 
it is emphatically supernatural, and must flow out in- 
cessantly from the inner fountains of the life, and re- 
sembles having every atom of our being soaked in 
sweet oil. 

2. Deep tenderness of spirit is the very soul and 
marrow of the Christ-life. Without it, the most vig- 
orous life of righteousness, and zeal, and good works, 
and rigid purity of morals, and missionary reform, and 
profuse liberality, and ascetic self-denial, and the most 
blameless conduct, utterly fail to measure up to the 
Christ-life unveiled in the New Testament. It is im- 
possible to see the infinite excellence and necessity of 
real heavenly tenderness of spirit unless it is specially 
revealed to us by the Holy Ghost. It takes a direct 
revelation from God to enable us to discern what is 
the very marrow and fatness of Christ's character, the 



TENDERNESS OF SPIRIT. 47 

inexpressible tenderness and gentleness of his nature 
which is always the heart inside of the heart, the soul 
within the soul, of the Christ-life. What specific 
gravity is to the planet, what beauty is to the rainbow, 
what perfume is to the rose, what marrow is to the 
bone, what rhythm is to poetry, what sublimity is to 
the ocean, what the pulse is to the heart, what har- 
mony is to music, what heat is to a human body, all 
this and much more is what tenderness of spirit is to 
religion. Without tenderness of spirit the most in- 
tensely righteous, religious life is like the image of 
God without his beauty and attractiveness. It is 
possible to be very religious, and stanch, and perse- 
vering in all Christian duties, even to be sanctified, 
and be a brave defender and preacher of holiness, to 
be mathematically orthodox, and blameless in out- 
ward life, and very zealous in good works, and yet 
to be greatly lacking in tenderness of spirit, that all- 
subduing, all melting love, which is the very cream 
and quintessence of Heaven, and which incessantly 
streamed out from the eves and voice of the blessed 
Jesus. 

Many religious people seem loaded with good 
fruits, but the fruit tastes green; it lacks flavor and 
October mellowness. There is a touch of vinegar in 
their sanctity. Their very purity has an icy coldness 
to it. They seem to have a baptism on them, but it 
is not composed of those sweet spices of cinnamon, 
and calamus, and cassia, which God told Moses to 



48 TENDERNESS OF SPIRIT. 

compound, as a fragrant type of the real sweetness of 
the Holy Spirit. Their testimonies are straight and 
definite, but they lack the melting quality. Their 
prayers are intelligent, and strong and pointed, but 
they lack the heart-piercing pathos of the dying Jesus. 
The summer heat in them is lacking. They preach 
eloquently and explain with utmost nicety what is 
actual and original sin, and what is pardon and purity, 
but they lack the burning flame, that interior furnace 
of throbbing love, that sighs and weeps, and breaks 
down under the shivering heat of all-consuming love. 
3. This all pervading tenderness of spirit is not 
a novitiate grace. It is not a product of April but of 
October. It is not the sap that flows up in the grape 
vine in early spring, but it is the sweet wine, the pure, 
unfermented juice of the grape, which is crushed out 
under the mighty squeeze of the winepress. Real 
tenderness of spirit can never be known except 
through great suffering. Nothing but the wine-press 
of sorrow can yield it, and it matters not what shape 
the trial may be, whether an unutterable sorrow for 
sin, or extreme poverty, or great physical pain, or 
relentless persecution, or the wear and tear of a thou- 
sand daily annoyances, or the agony of un- 
requited love, or life-long loniliness, or heart 
breaking disappointment, these or any other 
forms of sorrow, only constitute the shape of the wine- 
press, but the result may be the same, and that is the 
sweetness of heavenly wine from the grapes of crushed 



TENDERNESS OF SPIRIT. 49 

red hearts. There is no saintly character recorded in 
the Bible or outside of it who did not pass through 
the wine-press to reach universal tenderness and 
sw r eetness of spirit. 

It is in connection with Job's manifold and 
strange sufferings, that he says "God had made his 
heart soft." It is said that the illustrious Jenny Lind 
never could melt the hearts of her hearers with her 
inimitable singing, until her own heart had been 
crushed with sorrow. Madame Guyon says that 
while we are purified from sin by the blood of Jesus, 
yet the attributes and constitution of our nature must 
be utterly broken under the manifold cross of suffer- 
ing, to render us divine-like in our feelings and sym- 
pathies. And Paul says the weight of glory that will 
weigh us down, depends on the afflictions through 
which we pass to work out that result. We often 
come across Christians who are bright and clever, and 
strong, and righteous; in fact a little too bright, and 
a little too clever, like the perternatural bril- 
liance in a black eye, which precedes insanity, 
and there seems so much of self in their strength, 
and their very righteousness is severe and 
critical. They have everything to make them saints, 
except the crushing weight of an unspeakable cru- 
cifixion, which would grind them into a supernatural 
tenderness and limitless charity for others. But if 
they are of the real elect, God has a wine-press pre- 
pared for them, through which they will some day 



50 TKNDKRNKSS OF SPIRIT. 

pass, which will turn the metallic hardness of their 
nature into gentle love which Christ always brings 
forth at the last of the feast. 

4. Divine tenderness of spirit has a behavior to 
it which is superhuman and heavenly. 

It instinctively avoids wounding the feelings of 
others by talking on unpleasant things, wrangling 
in an argumentative way, by referring to painful and 
mortifying subjects. It carries its point by ceasing 
to contend, and wins its opponent by seeming to let 
him have his way. It cannot scold, or scowl, or 
threaten ; it has lost the power of quarreling. It in- 
stinctively buries and forgets all bad things. People 
who live in hot climates bury their dead very soon 
after death ; in like manner tenderness of spirit lives 
in the torrid zone of God's love, and quickly buries all 
putrid things out of its sight. No scene in the Bible 
opens up a greater vista into the tenderness of the 
spirit of Jesus, than where he stooped and wrote on 
the ground, as if his modest and loving heart did not 
want to hear the horrible account of evil. As we gaze 
on the soul of Jesus at that time, we see infinite po- 
liteness, both toward the accused and accusers ; not 
a trace of unkindness, or severity to either party. 
His whole manner and speech and disposition filled 
the whole air, as with a very sea of refinement, gentle- 
ness and inexpressible sweetness of spirit. This and 
similar acts of Jesus is like an opening between 
mountains, through which we look far off on an out- 



TENDERNESS OF SPIRIT. 51 

spreading silver sea of love, whose every undulation 
presents a new phase of unspeakable tenderness to- 
ward the poor sinner he came to save. Tenderness 
of spirit makes its home in the bosom of Jesus, and 
from that holy castle looks out upon all other crea- 
tures, good and bad, through the hopeful, pleading 
medium of the heart that was pierced on the cross. 
Tenderness of spirit is in divine sympathy with the 
poor and down-trodden and unfortunate and hated 
classes of mankind. 

It feels for the poor Chinaman and the Negro, or 
any that are the common butt of worldly scorn. 
Whenever it hears any of these spoken of in a harsh 
and bitter way, it feels a dagger pierce its own heart 
and a tear of sympathy comes to its eye, and a piercing 
silent prayer ascends from it, to that God who hears 
the sighing of the prisoner, and the cries of the unfor- 
tunate. It feels all things from God's standpoint, 
and lives but to receive and transmit the spotless 
sympathies and affections of Jesus. It understands 
the words of the Holy Ghost, "Be ye tender hearted 
forgiving one another/' Tenderness must be in the 
very nature, and forgiveness is but the behavior of 
that nature. 



52 THE BANQUET AT BETHANY. 



VIII. 

THE BANQUET AT BETHANY. 

One morning recently while reading on my knees 
from the 12th chapter of John, the blessed Spirit sud- 
denly opened up to my heart a wondrously rich and 
soul-nourishing illumination of the supper which was 
made for the Savior in Bethany, just one week before 
his death. The three characters shine out with pe- 
culiar light as forming parts of one whole. 

Martha, Lazarus and Mary are each significant 
types, not so much of three different persons as of 
three different stages through which Jesus will lead 
a true believer that entertains him. And then the 
three actions of these three persons are very signifi- 
cant of the states through which we pass in the 
Christ-life. 

Martha served, Lazarus sat, Mary anointed. We 
find as we progress in the life of the Spirit that we 
pass through the Martha life of diligent outward serv- 
ice, and then through the Lazarus state of death and 
burial and rising up into a life of quietness to sit at 
the table with Jesus, and then when Christ's love rises 
to an overflow or a burning flame in our hearts, the 
Mary state of pouring ourselves out in extravagant 
devotion, and the breaking of costly alabaster boxes. 
It takes all of these three forms of service to consti- 



THE BANQUET AT BETHANY. 53 

tute our full banquet with Jesus. They are worth an- 
alyzing and applying to our hearts. 

1. Martha served. Martha had the faculty of 
governing, managing details, of industry and taste, 
an eye to outward duty, exact method, civil courtesy, 
social decorum, and great punctuality in performing 
outward duties. She loved to serve. She had more 
joy in waiting on the table than in sitting with the 
guests. It was the gift of her nature, and the element 
in which her mind moved. Her outward service 
typifies a whole field in the religious life, which every 
true Christian must learn in the beginnings of his ex- 
perience. Outward acts of service lie at the basis of 
Christian life. The act of bowing on the knees, pray- 
ing audibly with the tongue, reading the Scriptures, 
attending places of worship, taking up the outward du- 
ties of a Christian in detail, and perseverance, all this 
seems so strange to a penitent, and so new, and some- 
times a little awkward to a young convert. But all 
this is very needful, and unless these outwards acts of 
service are entered upon, with the distinct determina- 
tion of persevering along all lines of known duty, there 
will be no firm basis for higher experiences. Now the 
ruin of many young beginners is to get their eyes on 
the mere performing of these various duties instead of 
getting their whole attention fastened upon the lovely 
Jesus. 

The reason why Martha served with such assid- 
uous taste and such swift decorum, neglecting noth- 



54 ?HE BANQUET AT BETHANY. 

ing, anticipating every need of the occasion, was be- 
cause her thoughts were all the time fixed upon the 
blessed One for whom all these outward duties were 
being done. Had she performed all those outwards acts 
with her eyes fixed merely on the actions, its true name 
then would have been drudgery. But when those 
acts had direct reference to one she so ardently adored, 
then the duties flowed from her deft fingers as sweetly 
and easily as raindrops from an April cloud. The 
identical same act may be a drudgery, or a devotion, 
according to the inner soul that vitalizes the act. 
Thousands of young Christians have their attention 
directed so exclusively to the mere performance of 
certain church duties, simply as duties, without being 
led to do all duties out of a personal affection for Je- 
sus, that their service for God has no charm or draw- 
ing magnetism in it, hence it becomes stale and weari- 
some. No outward service will have that firm, out- 
ward diligence of Martha to propel its way through a 
thousand resisting mediums, unless it flows from indi- 
vidual love for Jesus. Nevertheless there must be a 
conscientious thoroughness in all outward obligations 
and duties, financially, socially, devotionally, for these 
things make up the body of religious life of which per- 
sonal love for God is the warm, inward soul which 
animates the body. Unless we know how to serve 
with the true, humble, painstaking spirit of a real serv- 
ant, we shall never reach the higher altitudes typified 
by Martha's brother and sister. 



THE BANQUET AT BETHANY. 55 

2. Lazarus sat at the table with Jesus. This 
presents us with a form of experience which is the ap- 
propriate outcome of death and resurrection. Laz- 
arus was a quiet, reticent man, and with a nature pe- 
culiarly fitted to emblematize all freedom from worry, 
suspicion or precipitancy. His words are not re- 
corded. He was of a passive more than of an active 
nature. He utterly yielded himself up to the sway of 
God's providences, and was acted on more than acted. 
God's dealings with him in allowing him to die, and 
be buried, and then raised to life, and then untram- 
melled from grave clothes, and then sitting at the ta- 
ble with Jesus, is all in perfect accord with the make- 
up and gifts of the man. It is all a beautiful mosaic, 
wrought in the black colors of sickness and death, and 
in the bright colors of life and an evening banquet, in 
which the Holy Spirit has beautifully spelled out the 
form of that heavenly life of purity and restfulness of 
soul. Lazarus was sick and died. He had passed 
through the strange mystical valley, had seen all crea- 
tion fade from his vision, had entered the divine world, 
and seen the things of God. 

In like manner, we are to add to the Mar- 
tha service that unquestioning yielding up to all of 
our Father's unknown will to enter the Lazarus form 
of life. We, too, must grow sick of ourselves. We 
must faint under the burden of our internal heart-lep- 
rousy, our carnal nature, and self-will must expire; we 
must close our eyes in a mystical death, upon all 



56 THE BANQUET AT BETHANY. 

the things of earth, and open our vision to the real life 
of heaven. We, too, must enter the silent grave 
where we see ourselves as utterly nothing, and where 
we are shrouded about with the mantle of God's will. 
When Christ came to raise Lazarus, Martha 
thought the decay of the body would render it too of- 
fensive to have the door removed from the sepulcher. 
That lovely brother had become painfully offensive in 
the grave. And so in a very significant manner when 
we yield ourselves up to be utterly crucified in our 
nature, God deals with us according to his unsearch- 
able purposes and leads us into a death to sin and the 
world, and then he lays us into a silent grave, where 
we become like dead men out of mind, and where, 
alas, we become very offensive to those still living in 
the world, and where even our loved ones feel like 
keeping a distance from us. All true saints must pass 
through life, where they become sick of them- 
selves, and then become loathsome, or contemptible, 
to unsanctified human nature. It was out of this 
death and resurrection experience that there came to 
Lazarus that deep, unruffled stillness of soul, that 
reticence of speech, that longing, dreamy, far-away 
look in the eye, as if he saw perpetually the outspread- 
ing blaze of the divine presence, and the sweet splen- 
dors of the heavenly world, where he had spent four ec- 
static days. So the very act of sitting with Christ at 
the table sets forth great calmness and restfulness of 
spirit. He had gotten through with wrestlings of self, 



THE BANQUET AT BETHANY. 57 

the tossings of a fevered will, death and the grave had 
thoroughly conquered him, self-righteousness, self-es- 
teem, self-seeking, self-resentment, self-agitation had 
been left in the grave, and henceforth he was the deep, 
quiet, loving channel for the outflow of a real heavenly 
life. All this must be true in us, if we indeed and in 
truth sit at supper with our Lord. If our nature is 
not perfectly conquered how can we quietly sit with 
divine restfulness and gaze upon our Savior with ease 
and freedom? 

We are told that by reason of Lazarus being 
raised from death, many of the Jews went aw r ay and 
believed on Jesus. Our power to cause others to be- 
lieve on Jesus depends on what we are in the very core 
and disposition of our spirit. There is a supernatural 
impression that flows frOrn a soul that has been 
thoroughly crucified with Jesus and raised into a state 
of heavenly love and peacefulness of heart and life. 

Let us settle it, that to sit with Jesus in real, lov- 
ing fellowship is not a mere thing of option, but is a 
thing of profound interior fitness of nature. There 
must be the bringing of the soul through whatever 
steps of trial or losses, or crucifixions, or utter self- 
abandonment to God, where it is conquered, washed 
white and clean, softened into tender love, and hushed 
into a divine stillness, and had the very fountains of 
being flooded with Jesus, to prepare it to take that 
seat at that table, and eat with that holy, infinite One. 

3. "Mary took a pound of ointment of spikenard, 



58 THE BANQUET AT BETHANY. 

very costly, and anointed the feet of Jesus and wiped 
his feet with her hair, and the house was filled with the 
odor of the ointment." This presents a still higher 
form of the Christ-life, that overflowing, outpouring 
extravagance of love service, which brooks no cost, 
breaks alabaster boxes, which runs out in missionary 
zeal, and a sweet, holy frenzy of devotion to Jesus. 
Mary was the fitting character for this type of service. 
Her heart was utterly abandoned to Jesus. She 
seemed to despise all other things in comparison with 
him. She sank at his feet and drank in the deep, 
ocean meaning of his words, and gazed into the 
depths of his Spirit, and the magnitudes of his coming 
kingdom, until she saw the contemptible littleness of 
all that the world prizes, until she was well-nigh be- 
side herself with divine fervor, and she yearned to give 
the highest possible expression of her personal love 
for the Master. Her act at the banquet beautifully il- 
lustrates those believers who reach the highest state of 
divine contemplation, and whose love becomes a burn- 
ing flame. Her act is so significant, we need to anal- 
yze it. 

In the first place it was prophetic. Jesus says she 
anointed Him for His burial. Just one week from that 
time Christ was buried, and although Mary probably 
little dreamed of Christ being crucified so soon, yet the 
Holy Spirit impelled her to act wiser than she knew, 
and as love can see farther than anything else, she 
doubtless felt a great, sad premonition and wished to 



THE BANQUET AT BETHANY. 59 

show the Master a last signal expression of her unut- 
terable affection for Him. This is still true of souls 
who enter her state of all-consuming love for God. 
They have divine premonitions concerning the true 
body of Christ, they discover the subtle drifting of 
spiritual or satanic currents, they have a deep instinct- 
ive feeling whether others are advancing or receding 
in the divine life, they detect the dark and cool shadow 
of approaching crucifixion and trouble, they have fore- 
throbbings of the coming of the Jesus, and prophetic 
glimpses shoot through their mind of the majestic 
sweetness and glory of Christ's coming reign. They 
are in a prophetic region of life and often speak or do 
things far more wise and penetrating than ever their 
intellects could calculate. 

In the second place, there was not the least reserve 
for self in any way. In the account given by Matthew 
and Mark, they tell us this banques was given in the 
house of Simon the leper, and Marks tells us that Mary 
broke the alabaster box containing the sweet perfume 
that the box might never be used for any other pur- 
pose. This is the outpouring of life to the uttermost, 
that asks no pay, that has no reservations in any direc- 
tion, but a fountain of love, bent only on expressing 
itself at all costs, all hazards, even through the casket 
of life should be shattered to pieces in the outflow. 
To reach a state of constant, flaming love for God, we 
must be willing to break all the boxes in which is 
bound the subtle essence of our lives. Sometimes it 



60 THE BANQUET AT BETHANY. 

is a box of some secret, almost unknown, reserve in 
the will, a half timid, half fearful holding back our- 
selves from some line of suffering, or from some lone- 
ly and strange-looking path, or from some heroic duty, 
or from some overwhelming manifestation of God. 
There are often scarcely perceived and deep res- 
ervations, even in very good people, from a boundless 
abandonment to God. This is a box to be broken. 

Another is the social box, our standing with 
friends. Every saint who ascends the spicy moun- 
tains of burning love and holy contemplation will find 
at every epoch in their experience that they have to 
snap some social cords, and over and over again break 
some beautiful white alabaster encasement of human 
esteem, and the judgment of dear friends, in order to 
pour out the last drop of loving obedience at the feet 
of our blessed Jesus. Some must utterly break the 
financial box and lovingly consent to a life of poverty; 
nay, even rejoice in being poor, that thereby the pure 
spikenard of the Christ-life will have no hiding place, 
but all poured out in a life of faith on all lines: 
Others must break the box of human affection, and 
have all earthly loves so rent asunder, or utterly shut 
off, as to have no other love but the all-melting, spot- 
less, boundless, disinterested love of God flowing 
through them without hindrance. 

Marv lived to see that her alabaster box was a fit- 
ting type of the spotless body of Jesus, which was ut- 
terly broken; and the spikenard of His life was poured 



THE BANQUET AT BETHANY. 6 I 

out to the last drop for her redemption. It is an ax- 
iom that the very life of the infinite Christ is poured 
through us in proportion as we are broken, and even 
after we have known great and wonderful operations 
of the Spirit, there will often be forms of will or desire, 
or religious ambition that seem as pure to us as ala- 
baster, but burning love will, in its extravagance 
break them all for Jesus. 

In the third place the ointment was very costly 
Estimating a Roman penny to be fifteen cents of 
American money, the little box of nard was worth 
about fifty dollars. It resembled the attar of roses. 
Pure, ardent love gives its very best and delights in 
what seems to others a reckless waste of itself for the 
glory of God. There is a place of personal love for 
Jesus where the soul positively enjoys fasting in 
prayer, and self-denial, and almost goes wild in a holy 
ignoring of self that it may pour the very essence of 
its inner heart out to the Lord. It always puts God 
first and gives Him the best. 

A fourth feature is that the house was filled with 
the odor of the ointment. In like manner, when 
Christ broke his alabaster-like body the whole earth 
and all heaven was filled with the perfume of His gen- 
tle, loving spirit. In the same way it is as we break 
the boxes of our human nature and self-love, there is 
liberated from us the very odor of the Christ nature. 
The Holy Spirit tells us that the very name of a di- 
vinely good person is like ointment poured forth. The 



62 THE BANQUET AT BETHANY. 

most fragrant characters in the world are those who 
most thoroughly broke themselves, and poured their 
life out most extravagantly for the Lord. But see, in 
wiping His feet with her hair the perfume came back 
upon her own head. What a world of truth lies in 
this. Those who give all receive the most. What 
we pour out in loving service to God now will some 
day settle back as sweet odor upon our heads. The 
compensations of God are infallible, and minute, and 
as far-reaching as the white, shining years of eternity 
The last feature of her act was, it utterly shocked 
the conservative and calculating spirit of some 
of the apostles. Judas was the principal critic 
but the other evangelists tell us that some 
other apostles found fault with Mary's excess. 
Those who love God perfectly will always 
shock the conservatism of colder disciples. And even 
among the holy ones, those who get a furnace expe- 
rience of burning love must endure the criticism of 
God's people who cannot fully understand the seeming 
waste and extravagant breaking of many precious 
things for what seems a mere sentiment. Yet this 
hot-hearted pouring of ourselves out on all lines for 
Jesus, turns out in the end to be the very wisdom of 
God, the discretion of heaven, and is rewarded by be- 
ing rehearsed wherever the gospel is preached. This 
is the last and sweetest stage of the Christ-life on earth. 



PURPIvE FINGER NAILS. 63 

IX. 

PURPLE FINGER NAILS. 

When people are very ill, and we are watching for 
them to die, there are certain symptoms of approach- 
ing death which we note with painful thoughtfulness; 
such as an attack of hiccoughing, or fumbling with 
the bed clothing, or a ravenous hunger, or the droop- 
ing in the corners of the mouth, or great coldness in 
the extremities, or a deep purple settling in the finger 
nails. 

In like manner, when the spiritual life begins to 
decline, and the pulse of holy love beats fickle and 
slow, when Christ-like zeal is cooling at the heart., 
there are certain symptoms of the approach of luke- 
warmness and spiritual death corresponding with thci 
purple finger nails, the sad harbingers of decay. 
Let us look carefully at the ten finger-nails on the 
hands of our Christian life, and see if they have a good 
healthy flesh tint, or if they indicate any approaching 
death. 

First. One of the purple nails of the waning of holy 
love is a dispositoin to greatly incline to easy things 
and to shrink from mortification and hardship. There 
is a positive leaning toward things that are well cush- 
ioned, and amiable, and soothing. And though when 
trials and severe crosses have to be met, there may be 
no outspoken rebellion, there is a slight whimper in 



64 PURPLE FINGER NAILS. 

the soul, a childish whine in the spirit, a conscious 
shrinking from heroic endurance. The soul wants to 
be patient without having anything to suffer, it wants 
to be gentle without being snubbed and contradicted 
it wants to be lowly without having its beautiful honor 
and integrity called in question, it wants all the vir- 
tues without any homely self-abasement, it wants to 
be a real saint without taking the trouble to be one. 
It is delicately alive to guarding itself, it inclines to 
self-preservation, it serves God cautiously for fear of 
compromising itself on some lines, it leans to the ad- 
vice of friends who are not red hot with religion, it 
thinks there is no necessity of being over righteous, 
and so tries to solve the problem of how to live a sanc- 
tified life with as much ease as possible. This purple 
nail indicates that spiritual decay has struck the center 
of the soul. 

Second. There is a discounting of the real power 
of the Holy Spirit in the demonstrations which belong 
to the living gospel. In every Christian generation 
the outpouring of the Holy Ghost has been accom- 
panied with signs and demonstrations of God's power, 
such as loud weeping and strong crying, or bodily 
shakings, or falling in trances, or visions and revela- 
tions of things in heaven and hell, or physical prostra- 
tions, or raptures and shoutings of joy. These things 
were common in the days of the apostles, and with the 
saints in the middle ages, and in the days of Fox and 
Wesley, and in many places where the modern revi- 



PURPLE FINGKR NAILS. 65 

val of holiness is of a stalwart type. But when spirit- 
ual decline sets in, there is great shyness about these 
demonstrations, they are discouraged, or criticised> 
and alluded to depreciatingly, and there is particular 
emphasis given to things "being done decently and in 
order," by which is meant the decency and order of 
the man-side more than of the God-side. 

How sad to think that there are millions in the 
visible church who have never seen one clear demon- 
stration of the power of the Holy Spirit in all their 
lives. If we are afraid of the demonstrations of God's 
power on any line he may choose to send it, it is a 
purple finger-nail, and a symptom of spiritual heart* 
disease. 

Third. Another purple nail is growing fondness 
for looking at spiritual truth in a philosophical, theo- 
retical, and argumentative light. When the Holy Ghost 
floods a person, truth comes like lightning bolts, in 
short, epigrammatic, positive assertions, with square 
edges, and sharp points, without any studied effort 
to interweave it with the philosophies and the theolo- 
gies of men. But when spiritual fervor begins to 
cool, the lightning tames down to a tallow candle, 
the truth is rounded on the edges, and decorated with 
flowers. And then you will hear such persons de- 
scanting on the "philosophy of holiness, ,, trying to 
reconcile revelation with the whimsical and ignora- 
mus systems of depraved men. There is a tendency 
to argue more than to pray. 



66 PURPLE FINGER NAILS. 

If you find your mind searching the Bible to sup- 
port a creed more than to get nourishment for your 
own spirit, it is a proof of the loss of a divine appetite. 
A good way to test our spiritual life is to hold the 
Bible midway between our hearts and our heads, and 
if we find that the word of God gravitates more to- 
wards our heads than our hearts, it is an ill omen for 
our souls. If we are hot with divine love the Bible 
will gravitate to our hearts, that is, it will be devoured 
for spiritual nourishment far more than for mere doc- 
trine or debate. It is often the case that the more we 
grow in orthodoxy the colder we are in grace. Be- 
ware of the purple nail of a philosophical religion. 

Fourth. Another symptom is waiting for extra 
prompting in the doing of good. This is the quintes- 
sence of spiritual idleness. Nothing creeps on the 
soul with such a soft, cat's paw stealth as religious lazi- 
ness. Everybody in the world gravitates to idleness, 
and this is more true of the spiritual life than of the 
temporal. The Holy Ghost bids us to be diligent "in 
season and out of season," rain or shine, hot or cold, 
whether circumstances are propitious or forbidding, 
and not to wait for special impulses, or a gush of feel- 
ing to prompt us to the doing of good. But when 
holy love weakens, it watches for favorable circum- 
stances, it is afraid to precipitate religion upon people, 
it waits for some angel to trouble the waters, it does 
not step boldly by pure faith, but languidly looks for 
encouraging indications. It leans on second causes, 



PURPI.K FINGER NAILS. 67 

and not directly on the Holy Spirit. It watches for 
the river Jordan to subside before boldly stepping in. 
If you are lazily watching for times and seasons, you 
have lost the life-spring of active godliness. Holy 
love not only seizes opportunities for doing good, but 
makes them as well. 

Fifth. Another purple nail is undervaluing the 
gifts, graces, and labors of others in God's kingdom, 
who may not belong to our little set. This is one of 
the most delicate touchstones of deep piety to be 
found anywhere. Go into any religious company on 
earth, among ministers or laymen, and listen to their 
words; in a few moments you will likely hear expres- 
sions that indicate marked depreciation of either the 
piety or the fruitfulness of other people. There is no 
more universal weakness of believers on earth than 
this one. Those Christian workers who do not belong 
to our sect, who do not teach exactly as we do, whom 
God has called to emphasize certain truths which 
either our blindness or cowardice prevent us from em- 
phasizing, who do not pronounce our shibboleth, yet if 
they are casting out devils and doing God's work, do 
we find our hearts praising God on their behalf, do we 
fully appreciate their gifts and labors, do we grieve 
over our own defects and lack of fruit far more than 
we are inclined to dis-esteem others? On the other 
hand, do we speak slightingly of others in God's vine- 
yard, do we in the least speak reproachfully of them, 
even in our private thoughts do we minify them or 



68 PURPLK FINGER NAILS. 

their labors? If so, we ought to run at once for our 
Divine Physician, for it is evident that we need his 
heavenly medicine. Every depreciating thought that 
we have of others is a secret magnifying of ourselves. 
Exactly as we undervalue others, in that proportion 
we exalt self. 

Sixth. Another symptom is the glorifying of 
sectarianism. This can be done in a thousand subtle 
ways, of which persons are utterly unconscious. It is 
very painful to a true lover of Jesus, to constantly 
hear, and see in print, the word "church" put where 
the word Christ ought to be. The very air rings with 
such expressions as "Being true to your church," "A 
loverofyour church, ""Being the servant of the church," 
"Commissioned by the church," "Raising money for 
the church." "Being loyal to your church." In all 
such instances, if the word "Christ" were put where 
the word "church" is, it would be Scriptural, but 
otherwise it is a species of idolatry, for each man 
means by the word church his own sectarian body. 

When persons who have been baptized with the 
Holy Spirit begin to wane in their inner life it is oft- 
en manifested by this purple finger-nail of growing very 
churchly, they feel a special mission to take care of the 
church, that is to jealously defend the wonderful dig- 
nity of some sectarian body. In the same proportion 
that we get churchly we lose our zeal for the thorough 
holiness of the individual members of the church. 

Seventh. The policy spirit is so ubiquitous and 



PURPLK FINGER NAILS. 69 

refined, and can assume such multiplied forms, it is 
hard to define or describe it, but it is a sure sign of ap- 
proaching death. The policy spirit lacks independence, 
boldness, individual obedience to God, cloudless con- 
viction of God's will, firmness of decision, and a read- 
iness to do God's will and let God take care of results. 
The policy spirit walks in a mist, it is not sure of what 
is real duty, it has to consult a great many others, and 
is very shy about consulting the most spiritual, it 
leans to the conservative side on every question, it 
frankly admits that Christ would do a certain thing, 
but says, "We are not living in Christ's day and cir- 
cumstances are different," it thinks it safest to go with 
majorities, it looks at how certain things would appear, 
and not at the eternal truth involved, it is easily 
scared, if it does right it half-way apologizes for it; it 
acts in a mean, unbrotherly way and then says, "I 
hated to act that way, but had to do so for the sake of 
appearances, or to stand in with other people, or to 
protect myself from misinterpretation." Is anything 
on earth more mean, or sneaking, or contemptible to 
the Holy Ghost than this policy spirit in professing 
Christians, and especially in professors of holiness? 
It is a purple sign of a dying spirituality. 

Eighth. Another purple nail is a lack of persever- 
ance. We quit too soon in our devotions or labors, or 
enterprises for good. Our faith is brittle, and snaps 
under a continual strain. We close the meeting just 
before something would have been accomplished. 



70 PURPLE FINGER NAILS. 

We stop the prayer just a little short of prevailing with 
God. We allow bad weather, great opposition, lack 
of sympathizers, the absence of outward signs of sue* 
cess, to dispirit us, and grow peevish with God for not 
smiling more largely upon our labors. These are all 
symptoms of leaning on the creature, instead of draw- 
ing our inspiration directly from the sweet, eternal 
fountains of the Holy Spirit. And when we lean on 
creatures, our inner life wanes. 

Ninth. Another purple nail is to look with crit- 
icism and unbrotherly suspicion upon experiences in 
advance of our own. It is the almost infinite self- 
conceit of human nature to make self the criterion of 
experience, and that what we don't know is not worth 
knowing, and that any degree of piety or a 
divine manifestation which we have not had is readily 
stamped as wild fire and extravagance. 

A soul in its first love, or a believer fresh from the 
bath of purification, or a sanctified soul under the blazq 
of some new and large discloser of God is remarkably 
free from casting reflection on deeper experiences. 
They are in a condition then to believe great things 
of God; but when they begin to cool down they maka 
their experiences the standard, and so brand unfavon 
ably anything that does not tally with what they have 
passed through. This is a bad symptom of religious 
life. The true attitude of deep piety is to encourage 
the greatest fulfilment of God's promises, and if we do 



PURPLE FINGER NAILS. 7 1 

not habitually do this there is something wrong at" the 
core of our life. 

Tenth. A secret reserve with God. Uncon- 
fessed and perhaps unrecognized, yet a deep, subtle 
holding back from duty, or service, or love, a growing 
conservatism toward God. There is a secret fear that 
God may ask too much of us, that he wants us to give 
too much money, or put ourselves to too much trouble 
to help his saints, or that he will put too heavy bur- 
dens on us, or that he will not love us as much as he 
does somebody else, or that he may want us to serve 
Him with too much exactness in little things. There 
is a lack of utter abandonment to the Holy Spirit, a 
want of sweet, joyous, overflowing enthusiasm in his 
service. Hence we see how cautiously people pray in 
public or preach God's truth, or testify to his grace. 
All these things show the soul life is contracting, and 
resemble the pinching of the features which often pre- 
cedes death. Can we find one atom of reservation in 
the life and death of Jesus for us? Was not every act 
a boundless abandonment of himself for our welfare, 
and is it less than a positive meanness in our nature to 
have any reserves in serving such a Savior? We need 
to examine ourselves, to see if our spiritual finger- 
nails are turning blue. 



72 A CRITICAL SPIRIT. 

X. 

A CRITICAL SPIRIT. 

There is no disposition of the soul which more 
quickly and completely destroys the flavor of 
holy love than the spirit of criticism. The only per- 
sons who are competent to criticise are those who are 
full of spotless love, and of all persons on earth these 
are the most tardy to perform that office. A critical 
spirit may be described by the following features: 

I. It deems itself gifted from God with partic- 
ular genius to detect and correct evil in others. With 
every step in the advances of grace, there is given to 
the mind a new degree of light to discriminate finer 
shades of right and wrong. But unless there is a con- 
tinual increase of love which keeps fully, abreast, or 
even runs ahead of this added light, the foolishness 
and weakness of human nature will turn this power 
of discrimination into a death-dealing instrument. 

There is an inveterate frailty in human nature 
to assume the throne of God in judging others. Be- 
cause God gives religious persons the power to dis- 
criminate, a great many misinterpret the gift and con- 
clude that they have a special mission to detect defects 
and to exercise a police authority in correcting others, 
and hunting down wrong-doers. So much is this 
true that some eminently religious people think that 



A CRITICAL SPIRIT. 73 

all the religion on earth would go to wreck if they did 
not diligently exercise their gift in setting others right, 
Many such persons, before they die, pass through 
ordeals of experience which show them the utter 
foolishness of their self-appointed mission, for a crit- 
ical spirit is always a proof of a raw experience. 

2. The critical spirit hunts for defects in non-es- 
sentials. 

Like the Pharisees, it puts annis and cummin 
above the weightier matters of mercy and life. A crit- 
ical person is disposed to eye you from head to foot, 
and scan carefully your clothing, your eating, your 
facial expression, your voice, and gesture. He is on 
the hunt for something wrong and is bound to find 
it and sooner than miss his prey, he will convert a 
newspaper by the roadside into a stately ghost, for he 
is bent on being scared. If such persons can detect 
a foible, they seem restless, and as full of nervous 
vigilance as a cat watching a mouse, until they have 
pounced upon you and given you their estimate of 
your piety. Such persons will go out of their way 
to investigate the sins of others, they love to inquire 
into the shortcomings of their neighbors, they think 
it a great stroke of piety to unearth evil. 

The most awful thing about it is the satanic de- 
lusion that such a horrible spirit is a part of holiness. 
It is a proof of a weak mind or weak spirituality, to 
get the attention absorbed upon a collateral or non- 



74 A CRITICAL SPIRIT. 

essential, and this is always a significant trait of a 
critical spirit. 

3. The spirit of criticism is invariably a legal 
spirit. 

It takes the technical law side of every thing in- 
stead of the love side. It magnifies systematic the- 
ology above the Bible, it puts doctrinal statement 
above the very essence of God's life in the soul. It 
will spend a great deal more zeal in hunting heresy 
than it will in secret prayer. It has a strong propen- 
sity to pitch into people and things generally. It 
scans with eagle eye the writings of others, not to get 
spiritual nourishment, but ferret out any trace of 
false teaching. It matters not how holy or useful a 
person may be, if they make any statement by voice 
or pen which does not fit in with the critic's cast iron 
theology, the offender is at once pounced upon, and 
his supposed inaccuracies are peddled to the world, 
while the real worth of the life and service are ig- 
nored. It magnifies cooking utensils above food, and 
farmer's implements as greater than the harvest; it 
spends more time fixing boundary lines than to im- 
proving the county; it clings to a definition of relig- 
ion more than to its experience, and can even stake 
out the exact limits of the first and second blessing 
with more fervor than it cleaves to the meek and low- 
ly mind of Jesus. 

This severe, critical, legal spirit resembles a very 
thin, bony man, sparcely clad, shivering in a cold day, 



A CRITICAL SPIRIT. 75 

spending his strength on how to build furnaces and 
stoves, instead of warming himself at the fire. 

4. The critical spirit puts a wrong construction 
on the best things. 

It imparts its own barrenness of heart to the 
actions of other people. It thinks there must be a 
mean motive in every act, and a treachery in every 
vow, and a thorn in every flower, and hence wherever 
its eye falls its vision is based with foregone con- 
structions. It is inclined to construe all cheerfulness 
into levity, and all deep seriousness into moroseness, 
and true economy into stinginess, and liberality into 
wastefulness. It seems unable to find the right 
key to unlock things with, and so breaks the lock 
to force an entrance. The eye of criticism is always 
a misfit, and it is always hitting at the wrong object. 

5. A critical person must invariably make him- 
self the meter of other persons and things. 

And this is just as eminently true in the region 
of religious experience, as in other departments of 
life. And so many Christians size up all God's chil- 
dren by the phenomena in their own case. They 
judge of the repentance, or consecration, or spiritual 
experience of other people, just as it tallies in out- 
ward technicalities with their own. If a gold ring, or 
a watch, or loud screaming, or a bright vision, or a 
ten cent novel, or any other particular phenomenon, 
happen to figure in their lives, they make such inci- 
dent the touchstone to other people's religious ex- 



76 A CRITICAL SPIRIT. 

perience. They are disposed to criticise any one's ex- 
perience which either does not fit in with their own, or 
which seems to fall below it, and especially are they 
vehement against experiences which go beyond their 
own. Nothing less than to be completely crushed 
into humility, and broken into boundless, lowly love, 
will ever show such persons their narrowness and 
self-opinionatedness. It is an infallible law of the 
spiritual life that our severity in judging others marks 
the lowness of our own spiritual state. 

Let us notice some of the effects of the critical 
spirit : 

First, it blinds the eye to the beauty of God, both 
as to his attributes and as to his image in others. A 
life of holiness that does not have in it a perception 
of the beauty of God, a sweet heavenly vision that 
puts a gentle spell upon our faculties, which secretly 
entices us to love God more and to love all His crea- 
tures, and to love his manifold image as pictured 
forth in his saints, is unscriptural and pitched on a 
wrong key. A real holy heart is forever finding God, 
in his Word, in secret prayer, in the poetry of crea- 
tion, in the interblendings of providence, and also in 
the lives of his chldren. It is a notable fact that 
when religious people are suddenly flooded with the 
Holy Spirit, they will affirm that everybody looks 
beautiful to them. 

I have often heard persons in a testimony meet- 
ing, under the fulness of love, rapturously exclaim, 



A CRITICAL SPIRIT. 77 

"How beautiful all you people seem to me." Such 
experiences are only faint touches of what Heaven 
will be, where every single soul will be so enraptured 
with divine love that every creature he gazes upon 
will be an object of transcendent beauty, and a sepa- 
rate mirror reflecting in some unique luster the per- 
fection of God. In the same proportion that this 
spotless love leaks out of the heart, will the soul see 
the deformity of its fellows, and not see its own de- 
fects. Just as we pity the few deformed minds that 
can see nothing fascinating in little children, so that 
professed saint is to be pitied who can see no beauty 
of God shining in his children. 

But nothing so utterly blots out this heavenly 
attractiveness from God's people as the spirit of criti- 
cism. While no enlightened believer will be ignor- 
ranit of the natural infirmities of all God's children 
while living in the flesh, yet if we fail to see in them 
the attractions of the Christ-life, it proves our lack of 
the very essence of that life in us, which is gentle 
love. 

Criticism disfigures other people in our eyes, it 
imputes an ugliness to them, and then scourges them 
for the very ugliness which jaundice eyes have given 
them. 

Again, the critical spirit eats out, like a burning 
acid, the very sweetness of spiritual life. There is a 
mysterious quality of heart-gentleness and mental 
and soul-sweetness in a truly crucified believer, which 



78 A CRITICAL SPIRIT. 

cannot be defined. It is a thousand times beyond 
mere sanctification orthodoxy, it is far more than out- 
ward correctness of life, it is fathoms deeper down than 
the exact proprieties of behavior, it is more than a pro- 
fession, and infinitely more mighty than holiness 
preaching or correct doctrine. 

It is the breath of Jesus in the heart, the vapor 
from the river of life, the perfume of the rose of 
Sharon, the elixir of prayer, the marrow in the bone 
of truth, which is far more in the sight of God than 
all the outward hulls of religious form and teaching 
which only serve as the alabaster box to this divine 
spikenard of heavenly love. 

But one hour of critical thinking, or one severe 
utterance in a critical spirit, will strike through this 
inward purity and sweetness like the touch of gall. 
And because the spirit of criticism is so universal 
among Christians, is the reason why it is so rare to 
find a real saintly soul who is charged with divine 
sweetness of spirit. 

In the next place a critical spirit chokes up the 
channel in us, and thereby prevents the flow of the 
Holy Spirit through us upon other souls. God de- 
signs every believer to be a channel of his life, and 
he will pour a stream of his attributes and graces 
through us according to our capacity to transmit the 
blessed tide. And our capacity for such transmis- 
sion will be in proportion to our purity, our spiritual 
dimensions and in proportion to that nameless quality 



A CRITICAL SPIRIT. 79 

of divine tenderness which is in us. There are per- 
sons who rank as perfectly orthodox and very correct 
both in their outward life and teachings, yet through 
whom there seems to flow no celestial current. 

In addition to this, persons may be free from all 
sin, technically so called, and yet they may not be 
pipes for conveying a large stream of divine life to 
others. They lack volume. There is an interior 
choking somewhere, and if all their heart nature were 
thoroughly explored, it would be found there was a 
lack of kindness, a smallness of charity, a severity of 
spirit, a precipitancy of judgment, a subtle spiritual 
dictatorialness, a premature decision about things 
and persons, a something in the delicate machinery 
of their inward dispositions, which strangled the 
arteries of the spirit, and prevented the full, sweet 
flow of God through them. 

Lastly, the critical spirit invariably poisons other 
persons. It is satanically contagious. Other per- 
sons feel our spirit far more swiftly and accurately 
than they do our words or our deliberate actions. 
The soul is larger than the body and our spirits are 
larger than our souls. Wherever we move we carry 
an unpronounced and indefinable spirit with us. The 
dominant inward dispositions of the inner being are 
infallibly transmitted through the body, the gestures, 
the tones, and even the very nervous organism of the 
eyes and face. A critical spirit can be felt by others 



80 SPIRITUAL GLIMPSES. 

in spite of all effort to conceal it. Our only safety 

against this malady is to live in the very heart of 
Jesus. 



XI. 



SPIRITUAL GLIMPSES. 

There are certain characteristics which belong 
to the revelations of the Holy Spirit. One 
is, that they come unexpected, without premo- 
nition or warning. Another is, that they are 
quick, like a flash of lightning. Another is, 
that they are imparted to the intuitions of our spirits, 
far more than to our intellectual faculties. Another 
is, that though they are but instantaneous flashes, 
they remain indelibly impressed upon the memory, 
they seem to be burnt into our imagination and recol- 
lection. Another characteristic is, they come almost 
invariably when we are in a frame of earnest prayer. 

In the spring of 1895, I sat one day reading over 
again the life of Madame Guyon, by Dr. Upham. 
After reading a certain passage I laid the book down 
and bowed for a season of prayer. Just as I began 
to pray there was flashed into my spirit a marvelous 
vision of the death of Jesus. It was a momentary 
flash of light, in which I saw with great dis- 
tinctness, Christ on the cross, just at the in- 
stant that his soul left the body , and his head 



SPIRITUAL GLIMPSES. 8 1 

dropped forward upon his breast. I saw a pale, pur- 
ple tint in his face, the closed eyes, the thin, sorrow- 
ful features, and yet the whole suffused with tran- 
scendent loveliness. 

I did not seem to see his death from the out- 
ward, human side, so much as from the internal, di- 
vine side. I intuitively perceived the utter abandon- 
ment, obedience, humility, gentleness, and boundless 
love, which was poured forth in that dying moment, 
when Jesus breathed out his own life and left his 
body to hang limp on the cross. I was so affected 
by the \ision that I burst into tears, and for nearly 
half an hour exclaimed, "O, precious Jesus, O, beau- 
tiful death/' repeating the words over and over, while 
my soul was dissolved in love. I never dreamed that 
such a death of agony could be seen in the light of 
such unearthly beauty. I seemed to have a faint 
glimpse of how beautiful the self-surrender and death 
of Christ were to the eye of the Father. After two 
years that momentary flash in all its details of tender- 
ness and loveliness abides fresh in my spirit. 

In May, 1896, while holding services in Bro. 
Kauffman's Mission, in Grand Rapids, Mich., one 
night they sang for the opening hymn, "Open the 
pearly gates and let the Redeemer come in." And 
just as I bowed in prayer I had an instantaneous 
spiritual glimpse of the pearly gates and the city of 
God, with its walls of enormous costly gems, and al! 
suffused with dazzling light, and of the radiant, hap- 



82 SPIRITUAL GLIMPSES. 

py throngs that moved like soft, swift, shining clouds 
through its blazing portals. The sight was so at- 
tractive that it seemed a great cross to stay any longer 
in a world like this. The sight lingers with me yet, 
and the most beautiful things on earth seem wretched 
and deformed in contrast with that vision of the en- 
trancing beauty of the New Jerusalem. It was an 
abiding vision like this that Abraham had of the city 
which hath foundations, and which made him despise 
all earthly cities. Heb. xi: 10 and 16. Could God's 
people get one look into Heaven it would cure them 
from wanting to pile up worldly trash in this age. 

In June, 1896, while at a camp meeting in To- 
ronto, one morning as I bowed at the pulpit in secret 
prayer, just as my knees touched the straw there was 
given to my spirit a most wonderful illumination of 
those words of Jesus, "If any man thirst let him 
drink of me, and out of his innermost being shall flow 
rivers of the Holy Spirit. " John vii: 37-39. It 
seemed a vast interior vision by which I discerned the 
personal Christ as a fathomless fountain, located in 
the bottom of my spirit, and that out from him, not 
out from my creature nature, but that out from the 
eternal Son living in my heart, there flowed out a soft, 
sweet river clear as light, like that spoken of 
in Revelation, as clear as glass, flowing out 
from the throne of the Father and of the 
Lamb. I have no words to describe the ac- 
curacy and fulness of meaning which I saw in the 



SPIRITUAL GLIMPSES. 83 

words of Jesus, but the great prominent perception 
was that the Holy Spirit does not flow out from us as 
creatures, or from our faith, but that he eternally flows 
out from the Father and the Son like a warm gulf 
stream of liquid light, and that when the personality 
of Jesus is in reality enthroned in our hearts and 
taking possession of our whole being, then out from 
that divine indwelling fountain, as from a great arte- 
sian well, there flows out through the various chan- 
nels of our being, through our words and voices,, 
through our personality and magnetism, and through 
our very expression of face, the subtle, penetrating 
streams of divine lightnings of the Holy Ghost. In 
that flash of light I could see clearly the difference 
between my creature soul and the outflowing divine 
fountain, as plainly as you can distinguish the sandy 
bottom of a clear spring, from the water which flows 
up through the sand. I saw that the creature was 
only as the sand, and that the spotless, indwelling 
Christ was the perpetual fountain, moment by mo- 
ment, out of whom came all pardon and cleansing 
and illuminating, and holiness and healing, and that 
every blessing of every sort, which the creature can 
possibly receive is never deposited in any measure in 
the creature, but incessantly imparted from him, who 
is the exhaustless fountain. This wonderful interior 
perception has greatly aided me in the understanding 
of many Scriptures. 

It is one thing to see this truth intellectually, but 



84 SPIRITUAL GLIMPSES. 

a very different thing to see it in the Spirit. When 
we discern a Bible truth like this in the flashlight of 
the Holy Spirit, it comes home to us with power, it 
takes possession of us, it sweetly despotises our facul- 
ties and is more real to us, if possible, than the out- 
ward material facts around us. 

The very day I had this spiritual glimpse my at- 
tention was called to the conversation of Jesus with 
the woman at the well, in which the word "well," as 
used by the woman and by Christ, are in the Greek 
different words. The woman used the word which 
means a "cistern," but Christ used the word which 
means a "fountain." A cistern which can be filled and 
emptied, which can leak and get out of repair, is the 
poor creature's highest conception of a blessing. But 
God's idea is infinitely beyond that; namely, that of 
an eternal fountain, that can never be drained, never 
can be polluted, never get out of order, and never 
know any scantiness. Jesus offers to plant himself 
like a great ocean spring in the hidden depths of our 
nature, and from his personality to pour forth con- 
tinually streams of holiness, love, peace, joy, light, 
humility, charity, perseverance, prayer, and every 
holy virtue, like crystal rivulets, through our whole 
being. 

This vision of Christ, as a veritable fountain in 
us, will work marvels in our faith and experience, it 
will save us from depending on our conversion, or 
our sanctification, or our healing, or our wisdom, or 



SPIRITUAL GLIMPSES. 85 

our perseverance, but centers our faith every moment 
on himself, and from him we consciously drink of 
the outflowing Spirit. How it thrills us through and 
through to perceive how intimately we may be united 
to that eternal fountain of Being, out of whom all 
worlds and all angels, and all the ages have their 
origin. 

In January, 1897, while helping Bro. Kinard in 
a meeting, in Greenwood, S. C, one day as I went to 
the hall and bowed for a season of silent prayer, I had 
an instantaneous vision in my spirit of the formation 
of the Bride of the Lamb, into a lovely portable city 
of souls, as typified by the arrangement of the twelve 
tribes, in their tents at Mount Sinai. I seemed to be 
suspended about a thousand feet in the air, in the 
vicinity of Mount Horeb, and saw spread out under me 
in the most beautiful order the tents of the twelve 
tribes of Israel with three tribes on the north, three on 
the east, three on the south and three on the west, 
with long, beautiful avenues between the rows of 
tents, and in the center, or hollow square, the beautiful 
tabernacle, with a soft purple cloud hanging over it, 
and in the distance, the great, rugged, rocky moun- 
tain range, and over all the cloudless sunlight falling, 
like a charming spring morning. It was a most 
beautiful sight, and is still fresh in my mind. Just 
as this vision was flashed into my spirit, it came to 
me with great force, that was a type of Christ gath- 
ering his sanctified ones, out from the dark Egypt of 



86 BIASSED POVERTY. 

this world, into the heavenly regions and forming 
them, generation upon generation, and rank above 
rank, into that living, portable city, which John says 
is the Lamb's wife, having the glory of God, and 
shining like a palace, built of rubies and sapphires and 
diamonds. Rev. xxi: 9, 11. These powerful glimpses 
which the Spirit gives us of things in his word, 
gives us a sense of their reality and satisfy us, 
as no instruction of speculative reasoning could 
do. True we must begin all our knowledge, 
first with the use of our senses, and after 
that by the exercise of our reasoning faculties, but 
to reach divine certainty and to be confirmed and set- 
tled in Bible truth, it must be revealed to our inner 
being by the direct agency of the Spirit. 



XII. 

BLESSED POVERTY. 



There are four classes of poor people. First, 
those who are utterly destitute, and seem to have no 
desire to improve their circumstances — lazy, shiftless, 
almost stupid, concerning their own interests. Sec- 
ond, those poor who fret and chafe against it, bitterly 
complaining against God and their fellows, who hate 
the rich, and make fuel for anarchists. Third, those 
poor who, while seeking to better their condition, are 
resigned to God's will and do not covet the wealth 



BLESSED POVERTY. 87 

of others, but endeavor to make their poverty a means 
of grace to their souls. And fourth, those who are 
poor from choice, who have been lifted into such an 
understanding of divine things that they see things 
in the cloudless light of eternity and God, and are so 
flooded with God himself that earthly riches are a 
positive hindrance to them, and they are triumphantly 
poor. 

They are the exceeding few who do as Christ 
told the rich man — give away all they have and spend 
their life for God and souls, preferring to live by 
faith. 

What an infinite difference there is between the 
views of Jesus and men as to the importance attached 
to wealth. There are very few persons on earth even 
among Christians, yes, even among the sanctified 
ones, very few who get so far weaned from all things 
on earth, from the fashions, and laws, and ideas, of 
human beings, and so far out into the ocean of God's 
mind as to see things in the pure light of a heavenly 
mind. Everything in this world is exactly opposite 
in the mind of Jesus to what it is in the mind of men. 
Most Christians will admit that there is a disagree- 
ment between the mind of Christ and the mind of 
mankind; but it is rare to find one that can discern 
that the mind of Christ and the mind of man is ex- 
actly the opposite in everything in the world. And 
this applies to poverty as well as to all other things. 

In the four classes mentioned above, Jesus from 



88 BLESSED POVERTY. 

an eternal choice, selected poverty for his earthly 
estate, not merely to put himself in sympathy with 
all the poor ones of earth that he might win them to 
himself, but also he saw how utterly perverted the 
whole human mind was concerning the importance 
of wealth, and because earthly riches would have 
been a very clog to him, and a shackle to the free play 
of that boundless, triumphant life, that overflowing 
ocean of spotless love, which instinctively preferred 
to pour itself through channels of self-sacrifice, and 
riches would have cramped the victoriousness of his 
love for mankind. There are in each generation a 
few rich persons who* give themselves up entirely to 
God, and who manage their property with an eye 
single to God's glory, and who love to give to the 
work of God, and who enter into a deep and blessed 
life in the Holy Ghost. Such persons are very dear 
to God, and will receive a great reward, for it requires 
an extraordinary operation of grace for rich people 
to be deeply spiritual. Such persons have a great 
many hindrances to a divine life, which poor persons 
do not have. Riches bring all earthly comforts, fine 
homes, soft clothing, beautiful furniture, elegant pic- 
tures, rich food, horses, carriages, servants, travel to 
the mountains or the sea, the flattery of other people, 
the obsequiousness of hangerson, honors, and all these 
things form such a thick padding around the poor 
soul, that it is well nigh impossible for the arrows of 
eternal truth to reach the heart. Also riches blunt 



BLESSED POVERTY. 89 

the spiritual sensibilities, deaden the conscience, choke 
up the channels of love, make people self-con- 
ceited, and overbearing, and critical, with a severe 
and domineering spirit, and thus Jesus is hedged QUt 
from the mind. 

On the other hand, poverty, by denuding the soul 
of outward ease and luxuries, and, as it were, taking 
the roof off and exposing it to the out door life of 
God, gives ample scope for prayer. By making the 
body a beggar to a certain extent, it makes the soul 
a real beggar at the throne of God, and, under the 
touch of grace, leads the soul to pray for supplies for 
all needs, both inward and outward. 

Poverty also allows of ample scope for faith — not 
only faith for salvation, but faith on other lines, for 
providing ways and means : faith for healing of dis- 
ease, for the opening of providential doors — faith in 
the smallest details of life. The rich can exercise 
faith only for their spiritual needs; but the poor have 
two hemispheres for their faith to travel over, includ- 
ing both the spiritual and the temporal life. Hence the 
Holy Ghost tells us that God hath chosen the poor 
of this world, rich in faith; proving that they have a 
far wider range for trusting their heavenly Father 
than could possibly be the case if they were rich. 

Then, again, poverty, when under the operations 
of grace, opens up the fountains of sympathy and be- 
nevolence to others. Thousands of instances have oc- 
curred where little boot-blacks and pauper children 



90 BLESSED POVERTY. 

and very poor people have manifested a sympathy 
and liberality for those of their class, in surrendering 
their little morsel of food or comfort to the needs of 
others. Nearly all the great benevolences on earth 
are carried on by the poor. Very few rich people 
are liberal — hardly one in a thousand really gives any- 
thing worth called giving. So rare is this that a lib- 
eral rich person is the wonder of the city or neighbor- 
hood. Poverty not only opens up great fountains of 
prayer and a vast scope for faith, but it serves to arouse 
the mind — it leads to deep thinking, to searching in- 
to the warp and woof of God's providence, a deep 
study of the dealings of the Lord. It sharpens the 
gift of invention, it inspires wisdom in the use of 
scanty means to accomplish the best results, it puts 
more forethought into the spending of a dollar than 
would be exercised with a full pocket. All this is ad- 
ding wealth to the mind. Whoever heard of rich peo- 
ple being great geniuses or inventors or missionaries 
or reformers or founders of states or churches or vast 
revival movements? Through all the ages the pov- 
erty of the body has been the riches of the mind. 

We must remember that poverty in and of itself 
does not work out these results, for penury under 
the reign of sin has a whole class of curses attending 
it, just as riches under sin has many curses attending 
it ; but that taking both riches and poverty and pitting 
them under Gospel light and the working of the Holy 



BLESSED POVERTY. 9 1 

Ghost, poverty furnishes a field for a golden harvest 
of results which riches will never yield. 

Not the least of the blessings of poverty is the facil- 
ity it gives for weaning the soul from earth and lead- 
ing it to place its thoughts and affections on 
things in heaven. The roots of the heart, having no 
territory in this world in which to fasten, can more 
readily be planted in the soil of the heavenly world, 
where they can spread and grow to an unlimited ex- 
tent, and from which they will never be uprooted. 

Yet there is something for the soul in the Christ- 
life far beyond all these thoughts. It is an altitude 
which a few saintly souls reach, both among the rich 
and the poor, where all earthly wealth is voluntarily 
abjured, where the soul has such light and unity with 
the eternal Son of God, that, like him, it has a sweet 
passion for poverty. It sweetly depisess riches, and 
looks upon all the fine things of earth with a silent 
contempt, not because they are contemptible in them- 
selves but because they are so far infinitely below the 
splendor of a divine life that they are looked upon as 
a nuisance and a meddlesome hindrance to the im- 
mensity of a heavenly life. 

To form some idea of what I mean, imagine a beau- 
tiful angel, radiant with heavenly splendor and enrap- 
tured with the uncreated beauties of the blessed Trin- 
ity, putting on broad-cloth or decking himself with 
earthly ornaments, and encompassed with velvet furni- 
ture and hired servants! The verv mud in the street 



92 BLESSED POVERTY. 

were just as appropriate to him as these things. How 
utterly absurd and repulsive would it be for us to im- 
agine our blessed Jesus riding though Palestine in a 
fine carriage, with kid gloves and fine clothes, and 
living in a stone house, with elegant furnishings, and 
feasting on big dinners. The very association of 
these things with him would be loathsome and degrad- 
ing, and just as incongruous as adding tallow candles 
to the sun or putting white paint on a diamond. 

Riches would only have hemmed him in from the 
human race, and made him a private citizen, instead 
of being the universal man of all ages and all nations. 
The excessive wealth of the infinite life and love which 
was in him makes all earthly riches as common as 
the dirt. 

Now apply this line of thought to those who are 
the most like Christ, the old prophets, and the apso- 
tles, and we get a glimpse of a state of life where we 
are not only resigned to being poor but endeavor to 
bear it patiently, but we see that lofty condition of soul 
in God where we can be perfectly triumphant over all 
poverty or wealth, where we are sweetly and sublimely 
indifferent to the pinchings of penury, and gladly make 
it a channel for the outpouring of a life of prayer and 
love and good works, having no anxiety for our- 
selves, spending our strength in looking out for the 
interest of Jesus and leaving all our earthly wants to 
his care, taxing our heart only to know how we can 
love him more and do more for him. 



THE DANGERS OF PROSPERITY. 93 

This is the feeling John Fletcher had when the 
king offered to reward him for some little service of 
his pen and he replied, "All the reward I want is more 
grace." 

And the great Daniel said to the King of Baby- 
lon, "Let your rewards be for others. " 

This is victory over the world and all the things 
in it. Such souls possess the whole of God, and they 
own all material riches in the same way that Christ 
owns them. "He is rich who owns God, but he is 
richest of all who owns nothing but God." 



XIII. 

THE DANGERS OF PROSPERITY. 

It is very difficult for us to conceive of the magni- 
tude of evils which sin has wrought in our nature. 
In addition to everything that properly belongs to 
sinfulness, it has wrought horrible effects in the direc- 
tion of deformity and foolishness. There are many 
things in us which are more properly speaking deform- 
ities more than direct sinfulness, and this should lay 
a broad basis for charity. And then in a thousand 
ways sin has made us foolish, and as on the ocean af- 
ter the storm has passed, the disagreeable waves still 
roll on, so after sin, properly speaking, has been re- 
moved from the soul, the effect of its foolishness is still 
perpetuated in the mind. This lack of well balanced 



94 THE DANGERS OF PROSPERITY. 

wisdom and depth of spiritual discernment is almost 
universally manifested in the fact that a little prosper- 
ity on any line, spiritual or temporal, seems to upset 
us, and draw the heart away from God. There is 
nothing on earth more ruinous than uninterrupted 
prosperity, that is, using the word prosperity in the 
human sense; and the very persons who insist that 
success does not hurt them, are the very ones most 
ruined by it. The greatest fool is the one who will 
not admit his foolishness. There is a danger not 
only in outward prosperity of health and finances and 
social standing, but the principle is just as true when 
applied to religious experience; that is, having no 
trials or crosses to sink the soul in self-abasement. 

Prosperity is not always a token of God's favor 
There is an awful meaning to the words of the Holy 
Ghost in speaking of persons who have things cozy 
and prosperous when he says, "Thou hast already re- 
ceived thy reward." Can there be a darker curse in 
eternity than the one couched in those words? And 
yet millions not only of sinners, so-called, but pro- 
fessed believers are intensely eager to grasp the ful- 
filment of those awful words. When prosperity is 
given us of God it is mostly because he condescends 
to our childish weakness, because he sees we have 
not the strength to endure hardness; and what peo- 
ple call success is often permitted to us of the Lord 
because of our infantile weakness of faith. 

It requires great inward strength of heart to en- 



THE DANGERS OF PROSPERITY. 95 

dure great losses and privations, and what seem to 
others sore failures, and to be cut off from all crea- 
ture comforts and consolation, and yet all the while 
be tightening the hold on God, and sinking into self- 
depreciation, and believing that God is doing every 
thing for the best. Temporal success has a wonder- 
ful tendency to weaken our faith, because it attaches 
our trust to creatures and circumstances, whereas ad- 
versity shuts our faith up to God above. God becomes 
dear to us in the same proportion that we are shut 
up alone to him. Again, prosperity gives us a false es- 
timate of ourselves, by a growing conviction that it 
was our skill or wisdom, or righteousness of character 
that brought it to us. Like the ancient king we say, 
''Is not this great Babylon which I have built?" with 
an emphasis on the U L" Frosperous people, by an 
unavoidable law of comparison, must note the con- 
trast between themselves and the vast multitudes who 
fail on the very lines where they succeed; and seeing 
only the operation of natural causes, they are led im- 
perceptibly to form a very high estimate of their fac- 
ulties, or their industry, and to secretly pride them- 
selves on their advancement; and this leads to a host 
of vices such as self-conceit, self-righteousness, impa- 
tience with persons of less success, and a lack of char- 
ity for those of less attainments. Hence it develops 
a habit of esteeming people as to their real worth by 
their amount of success; and just in the same propor- 
tion as prosperity gives us an over-estimate of ourselves, 



96 THE DANGERS OF PROSPERITY. 

it gives us an under-estimate of others who are not so 
prosperous; and this corrupts the very fountains of 
character. This is why prosperity in a thousand ways 
lays the foundation of its own ruin. This principle is 
true when applied to individuals, or families, or 
churches, or nations. There never has been known a 
nation, or a church, or a family since the fall of Adam, 
that prosperity has not proved in the end its degenera- 
tion, and in most instances its utter downfall. There 
is a fascinating mist that success brings to the eyes, 
which blinds people to the very causes which produce 
success. These causes are humility, perseverance, so- 
briety, self-denial, painstaking, and consideration for 
others; but success causes the soul to forget these very 
things, and to cease their practice, and as there comes 
a gloating over the effects, there is a simultaneous neg- 
lect of the cause. Many a preacher begins his life- 
work in humility, much secret prayer, self-denial, 
searching of God's word, and after these things have 
brought success, he neglects the Bible for philosophy, 
neglects secret prayer for conversation, self-abasement 
for the receiving of honors, and loses all his power, 
and becomes an empty figure-head. Even when God 
blesses a believer with great spiritual joy, and bright 
visions of heavenly things, there is a subtle tendency 
in the mind to lean on its spiritual blessings, and to 
call in the sentinels from picket-guard. 

Hence Satan watches God's children to make an 
onslaught upon them just after a spiritual banquet. 



THE DANGERS OF PROSPERITY. 97 

Eternal vigilance in the prince of liberty, and this is 
true in the spiritual life as in the political. In most 
cases the absence of chastisement in one's life is any- 
thing but a proof of God's love, for he himself de- 
clares, "As many as I love I rebuke and chasten. " 
The soul learns things under God's chastisement 
which it is utterly and eternally impossible for it to 
learn otherwise; and those who disagree with these 
declarations are of a light and superficial experience 
and mostly of a trifling mind. Prosperity makes 
people shallow, in their thinking, praying, self-knowl- 
edge, in their Scripture insight, and in their interior 
knowledge of God, so that what is popularly called 
prosperity, is in most cases real failure; and what 
mankind looks upon as utter failure, turns out to be 
with God, and in eternity, in many cases, the grandest 
kind of success. We shall never know who have 
made the greatest achievements till all the human race 
render up their account before the great white throne. 
Only see how a little success makes people dictatorial, 
and critical, and overbearing toward others. This 
proves a terrible danger. At the very time that thou- 
sands of people insisted on making Christ a King, and 
when his popularity was at the highest pitch, he with- 
drew himself that same day from everybody and spent 
the night alone in the mountain praying to his Father. 
Here we see infinite wisdom. For every wave of suc- 
cess, he sought a deeper self-abasement, and more 
complete solitude with the Father. Here is the pat- 



98 THE DANGERS OF PROSPERITY. 

tern for all believers. If for every little touch of pros- 
perity we have, we seek in some way to deny our- 
selves and get closer to God, and sink in deeper humil- 
ity, and strip ourselves of every thought of self-merit ; 
this would save us from the danger of prosperity; it 
would preserve what blessings we have acquired, ana 
yet keep us in heart so detached from those blessings, 
and so broken and poor in spirit, that our Father 
could safely increase his benefactions. If we had the 
wisdom to practice this, there is no telling how much 
God would bless us. We are worth more to God 
than the blessings he bestows upon us, and if those 
blessings are going to wean us from him, and make 
us play the fool, then his infinite wisdom compels him 
to take them from us, for just as soon as God's bless- 
ings begin to take the place of God, they become a 
curse, and just as soon as prosperity lifts us up, it 
prepares the way for our failure. Will we ever learn 
to intensely and continuously and increasingly love 
our God for his own sake, and to secretly, with a 
supernatural discernment, despise other things in 
comparison with him? 



SIGNS OF ANSWERED PRAYER. 99 

XIV. 

SIGNS OF ANSWERED PRAYER. 

When we enter a life of real, prevailing prayer, 
we are lifted into a supernatural world. It is indeed 
a real spirit world, with its revolutions, its seasons, its 
laws and phenomena, as distinctly marked as those of 
a material world. Prevailing prayer has its begin* 
nings, its progress, its maturity, in which state there 
are certain signs by which we may conclude that the 
prayer has been accepted by our heavenly Father. I 
may not specify all of these signs, but among the to- 
kens that our prayer has been answered, I will men- 
tion the following: 

1. A vehement inpulse to pray for a certain 
thing, especially when it is disconnected from self-in- 
terest, or private, personal ends of our own, may be 
taken as a sign that the Holy Spirit is carrying out 
some of the Father's designs through us. The Holy 
Spirit is an incessant fountain of prayer, and he se- 
lects certain souls through whom to pour certain spe- 
cial prayers. With infinite wisdom and love he ar- 
ranges a fitness between the prayer and the soul with 
whom he burdens it. God would not inspire a prayer 
which he did not intend to answer, and when the pe- 
tition increases in sweet intensity, the soul may rest 
assured that it has been chosen as a channel of God's 



IOO SIGNS OF ANSWERED PRAYER. 

will in offering the prayer, and that the answer will 
be granted. 

2. When the praying one has a firm confidence 
amounting to a moral certainty, that the prayer is in 
perfect accordance with God's will, he may take it as a 
conviction that the prayer is answered. This sign is 
generally in the shape of a firm confidence, without 
knowing any special cause for it. The outward cir- 
cumstances are still unchanged, mountainous obsta- 
cles may seem in the way of the prayer being an- 
swered, the soul may have no outward evidences of 
the answer, and yet the mind has a calm conviction, 
and the heart has a restful assurance, that in some 
way the subject matter of the prayer will come out all 
right. As a rule in such cases, the soul has no idea 
how the prayer will be answered ; it has no plan as to 
the mode of the answer ; perhaps it would be puzzled 
to invent a way for the answer ; but in spite of its 
darkness, and all appearances, there is an unaccount- 
able conviction that the thing will be done. 

3. Another sign of answered prayer is a deep, 
strangely sweet indifference as to whether the prayer 
is answered or not. This is not the dull, stupid indif- 
ference of death, but the sweet, vivacious, joyful indif ■• 
ference of intense life. It is accompanied with an ar- 
dent love for God's will. There may be a sudden 
burst of passionate attachment to God's will, which 
it sees to be infinitely preferable to all its own desires, 
so that it is lifted out of its own petitions and away 



SIGNS OF ANSWERED PRAYER. IOI 

from any special choice into the vision of the sweet 
and boundless will of God which makes it seem for 
the time being utterly indifferent of its own petitions. 
I know a man who, in great financial straits, was 
pleading with God for weeks for relief. Suddenly, one 
night, he experienced a sweet, joyful indifference come 
into his spirit as to whether he was relieved or not. 
From that moment he knew that his prayer was an- 
swered, and the sequel abundantly verified his conclu- 
sion. 

4. Another token is when the prayer is entirely 
taken from us, so that we have no inclination to pray 
it and even forget at times to mention it in prayer. 
Sometimes the soul will feel a gentle check upon it not 
to offer the petition. The burden of prayer has been 
like a storm which has gathered itself into 
great vigor and swept through the soul for days or 
weeks with its rending wind and torrents of rain, but 
when the storm has passed all is still ; the birds come 
out to sing, the raindrops glitter on the leaves, the rain- 
bow floats on the receding cloud, but every element 
of the tempest has disappeared. This is sometimes 
the likeness of a tempestuous prayer which has spent 
itself through the soul. In such a case, when we at- 
tempt to offer the prayer we find ourselves forgetting 
to plead, and an involuntary thanksgiving springs up 
from the depths of the inner spirit. We cannot force 
ourselves to keep on begging, for a great calmness has 



102 SIGNS OF ANSWERED PRAYER. 

come, and happy thoughts, like singing birds, flit 
through the mind. 

5. Another sign of answered prayer is a victo- 
rious laughter of the heart. It may be difficult to de- 
scribe this phenomenon, yet it is Scriptural, and, in 
some instances, a marked experience in prayer. This 
particular sign is apt to come to the soul when pray- 
ing in great distress or against seeming impossibilities. 
We have an instance of this in Sarah, who, with her 
husband, had long been praying against the seeming 
impossible, and the answer to her prayer was preceded 
with triumph and laughter. Isaiah records a similar 
experience when he and Hezekiah were praying to 
God against the besieging army of the Assyrians. 
This is the word which the Lord hath spoken concern- 
ing Sennacherib: "The daughter of Zion has despised 
thee, and laughed thee to scorn. " It is evident that 
Isaiah felt that strange, divine laughter go through his 
soul. Sometimes, when I have been pleading for an 
hour or more for God to do a work seemingly against 
all earthly odds, I have felt a sweet ripple of inexpres- 
sible laughter go through my spirit and found myself 
involuntarily smiling through my tears. Just as there 
are different signs, so there are different kinds of 
prayer. I think it will be found that particular kinds 
of prayer will be accompanied by particular signs of 
the answer. 

6. Sometimes God gives a mark of answered 
prayer in the shape of a great rebuke or a deep cutting 



SIGNS OF ANSWERED PRAYER. 1 03 

humiliation. In such cases God greatly honors the 
soul by putting its faith to a severe test. We have 
Scripture samples of this in the case of Hannah, 
whose prayer was so ardent and spiritual that it sur- 
passed words, and only her lips moved, and Eli severe- 
ly rebuked her as a drunken woman. Another in- 
stance is that of the mother of Jesus at the marriage 
in Cana, whom Jesus seemed to speak to in a severe 
manner, when she requested him to produce wine. An- 
other case is the Syrophenician woman, whom Jesus 
compared to a little dog. Please notice that in all 
these instances the humiliation, mortification and re- 
buke preceded the most remarkable and abundant an- 
swers to prayer. These answers are still repeated in 
spirit. Sometimes in great agony of prayer we feel 
as if God is treating us coldly, as if we are spurned 
from His presence, and our hearts feel lacerated with 
severe rebukes ; yet, instead of these feelings driving 
us from God, we run to him and crouch the closer still, 
and feel perfectly willing to bear any reproach, or 
stigma, if he will only hear our cry. With these 
seeming rebukes there is given a greater fervency of 
prayer, so that in the apparent rebuff there is an intui- 
tive persuasion that if we persevere the petition will be 
granted. We are not to seek for any of these signs, 
but to earnestly seek God for the things needed, and 
let him send the signs according to his loving will. 
We must be careful not to fret our hearts or minds 



104 TAKE TIME. 

about the answers to our prayers, for all such worry 
and fret only delay the answer. 

The very climax of prayer is where the most ve- 
hement desire in the spirit is conjoined with the most 
restful patience upon the movement of God's will. 
The foregoing signs are some of the telegrams which 
the Holy Spirit dispatches into us that our petitions 
are granted through the infinite merit of Jesus. 



XV. 

TAKE TIME. 



Precipitancy is one of the weaknesses resulting 
from our fall. 

To rush forward in our thinking and speaking 
and acting, proves a lack of faith, and want of appre- 
hending the presence and dominion of God over all 
things. It is true in a thousand different things, that 
he that believeth will not make haste. To act pre- 
maturely is a characteristic of infancy, it shows a raw- 
ness of the mind. Hence one of the lessons which we 
learn more and more as we become intimately ac- 
quainted with God, is the celestial art of walking slow. 
To learn to move slowly with God is not laziness, nor 
over-lateness, for it is the very highest type of zeal, 
which is a watchful promptness. 

The fault of being behindhand is one of the ef- 
fects of over-hastiness of spirit. Whereas the most 



TAKE TIME. 105 

perfect vigilance which keeps its eye ever on God, and 
moves with him in the present moment, is too wakeful 
to be rash, and too prompt to be over-hasty. To 
learn how to take time, will introduce the soul into 
a whole world of progress in the religious life. 

We must take time to pray. The greatest lack 
of Christian life to-day, even among people professing 
holiness, is a lack of taking time for deep, thoughtful, 
exhaustive prayer, that is taking time to pray any sub- 
ject out in all its details before the Lord, taking time 
to put our whole heart and mind intensely in the 
prayer, and then taking time for the Holy Spirit to 
speak to us in the depths of our spirit and reveal to 
us the will of God. 

If all the time that Christians spend in anxiety, 
or in seeking advice from other people, or in foolish 
speculation, or in making plans and building air cas- 
tles, was spent in patient and thoughtful prayer, what 
vast fields of satisfactory light and clear divine guid- 
ance would be opened up to them. They would learn 
the knowledge of God's will on all lines, such as would 
give a deep, restful assurance which would make them 
spiritual giants. If ministers and evangelists, who 
are supposed to give their time to soul-saving, would 
take time to spend hours each day in prayer to God 
they would acquire more light on divine things, and a 
brighter range of scriptural knowledge, and an inte- 
rior vision into all creation and providence which all 
the universities of earth could never impart, and also 



106 TAKE TIME. 

they would obtain a depth of sweetness of experience 
which would make them channels of divine life to 
other souls. 

It is amazing how little time even ministers, yes 
even holiness preachers, spend in secret prayer. This 
is because we foolishly imagine that we have so many 
other things to attend to that we cannot take time to 
pray ; but some day we may find that time was the raw 
gold, and that prayer was the mint in which moments 
were coined into heavenly wealth. 

Take time to prepare for our work. The greater 
the work we are to do, the longer preparation does 
God give us for it. How eager human nature is to 
get into an enterprise, or a field of work, before there 
is a thorough preparation. To be prepared for a 
great mission is a great deal more than to go through 
a school or to learn a trade or to pass a good 
examination; the preparation must go deeper, 
and enter into the very qualities of the heart 
and will. There must be the patient endur- 
ance, the breadth of apprehension, the quickness 
and sweep of mental vision, the balancing of the judg- 
ment, the impartiality of decision, and a largeness of 
divine gentleness for those with whom we deal ; an in- 
expressible preparation which oftentimes nothing but 
suffering, or lonely sorrow, or years of patient wait- 
ing can develop in us. What a whole world of knowl- 
edge we learn from God by studying how he deals with 
his creation, and with his servants, in the time con- 



TAKE TIMK. 107 

sumed in preparing them for his purposes. Volumes 
could be written on this. He was eighty years train- 
ing Moses for the work of forty. John the Baptist 
was thirty years preparing for the work of two years ; 
and the incarnate God was thirty years getting ready 
for the ministry of three. 

It seems to have been the life mission of good old 
Simeon to hold the infant Jesus a few moments in his 
arms, and pronounce a glorious prophecy over him; 
and he was over eighty years preparing for these few 
moments. 

What we call preparation for a life work is often 
so utterly human, and so stuffed with man-made theo- 
ries, as to be a positive hindrance to the Holy Ghost. 
A preparation, according to God's idea, involves many 
things beyond the grasp of our thought. A short 
work, with a thorough, divine preparation behind it, 
will accomplish more than a work of many years with 
only a human qualification for it. 

We should take time to keep recollected in God. 
That is, to recollect who we are, where we are, what 
we are doing, and to keep before the mind the divine 
presence. This will cause us to move quietly and 
slowly, keeping pace with God's will ; it will give us 
equipoise of soul, calmness amid all circumstances, 
sweetness of spirit amid many provocations ; it will 
prevent us from uttering rash w r ords or forming harsh 
judgments, or giving too quick decisions, or by any 
impetuosity breaking the beautiful flow of the Holy 



108 PAUl/S THORN. 

Spirit through our hearts. How many thousands of 
times in our past lives we have seen that we made a 
bargain, or wrote a letter, or gave a decision, or uttered 
a rebuke, or in a prayer or conversation expressed 
thoughts just a little too soon; and that, if we had 
been perfectly dead to all our impetuosity, and in deep, 
quiet union with God, and taken time to move gently 
and slowly with his will, almost infinitely better results 
would have been accomplished. 

Who of us are learning the art of walking slow 
in God's time? 



XVI. 

PAUL'S THORN. 

It is not needful that we should know exactly what 
Paul's thorn in the flesh was, and the very mist that 
hangs around it renders it easier for each of us to ap- 
ply the principle of it to ourselves. 

Nevertheless, when we collect all the various al- 
lusions to it we can conjecture with some degree of 
certainty that it was probably the disfigurements and 
mangled condition of his face and eyes, which he re- 
ceived at the time he was stoned and left for dead at 
Lystra. 

The account of this thorn is given in the twelfth 
chapter of 2d Corinthians, in which he says the thorn 
was given him over fourteen years previous to writing 



paul's thorn. * 109 

that epistle. Paul wrote this epistle A. D. 60. He 
was stoned at Lystra A. D. 46, which identifies the 
time of receiving the thorn with the time he was 
stoned. It is very evident from a close view of the 
record, that Paul was literally stoned to death, that 
his head and face were horribly mangled with the 
rocks. He was dragged out of the city and left as a 
dead dog by his enemies, at which time his disem- 
bodied spirit went to Paradise and he was permitted 
to have extraordinary revelations of the heavenly 
world; things so divine that there were no words in 
human language to express them. (See verse four, 
margin.) 

His spirit was then sent back in the body, and 
while the disciples were weeping around his dead 
body, he was restored to life, and sufficiently healed 
to rise up and walk, and the next day take a long jour- 
ney and preach. But notwithstanding all this, there 
were horrible scarifications left about his eyes and 
features which made his face repulsive to look at, 
and this was a constant mortification to him. 

This will account for so many allusions in his 
epistles ; such as, "His letters, they said, were weighty 
and powerful, but his bodily presence is weak." In 
his epistle to the Galatians, he says that they did not 
despise his temptation to the flesh, nor reject him 
with contempt (see Greek), and that if it had been pos- 
sible they would have plucked out their own eyes and 
given them to Paul. This proves that the disfigure- 



IIO PAUl/S THORN. 



ment was connected with his eyes. Again he says in 
the same epistle, "You see in how large letters I have 
written unto you." Most of his epistles were dictated 
and only signed by Paul, but as the Galatians had par- 
tially backslidden, to more effectually win them back 
to holiness, he wrote a short autograph letter, and ow- 
ing to the affliction in his eyes, he had to make the 
letters very large, which would be a proof to the Ga- 
latians that Paul actually wrote it. - The common 
version which says he wrote a large letter is in- 
correct, and should be, he wrote in large letters. 

Again in concluding the Galatian epistle he says, 
"From henceforth let no man trouble me, for I bear 
in my body the brand of the Lord Jesus." (Greek, 
stigmata.) This stigmata was the fire brand with 
which masters branded their slaves. Sometimes slaves 
would fly from their merciless masters, and take ref- 
uge in some heathen temple and sell themselves to 
the god of the temple; then the priest of the temple 
would brand with a hot iron such a slave, as the 
special property of that temple, and his old master 
could never more trouble him. 

Paul uses this to illustrate to the legalized Ga- 
latians who had drifted back into the bondage of the 
ceremonial law that he had fled from his merciless mas- 
ter, the Jewish law, and had fled to Jesus the new Mas- 
ter, and sold himself to Christ, and that Jesus had put on 
him his brand, and from henceforth his old master, or 
any old Jewish teacher, should not trouble him. This 



PAUL'S THORN. Ill 

disfigurement of his face and eyes, which he received 
or Jesus's sake, was the brand or stigmata he referred 
to. 

From this account we see that the thorn in the 
flesh was given to Paul several years after his conver- 
sion and sanctification. It only illustrates the vast ig- 
norance among Christian people, when we find per- 
sons in every part of the country who affirm that 
Paul's thorn was original sin. Paul received this 
thorn, the messenger of Satan, to buffet him, after 
reaching the highest states of grace and the deepest 
insights into glory possible for a mortal man to re- 
ceive ; hence it could have no connection with the "old 
man/' or the sin principle. 

From all the foregoing we learn that just as long- 
as the human soul is in this world there is an element 
of danger in it, and that even when all sin is purged 
away, and the soul filled with heavenly things, that 
there is an element of danger in the very excesses of 
grace and the abundance of revelations. The Infinite 
Searcher of spirits saw a liability in Paul of over exal- 
tation which he was utterly unconscious that he had. 
He says, "Lest I should be exalted above measure, a 
thorn was given to buffet me." There were liabilities 
in Paul which he himself was not aware of, but God 
saw the liability, and saw the mortification which was 
needful to tone him down. In every age this has been 
true of devoted persons, the most ardent and highly 
favored saints. 



112 PAUl/S THORN. 

It is a common thing for the holiest of people to 
manifest in their spirit tendencies to dogmatism, dom- 
ineering, display of authority, and a dictatorial censor- 
ship over others, of which they are unaware, and can- 
not believe that such is true when it is told them. 

The fact is, no human being understands the 
workings of his own spirit, except as it is revealed by 
the Holy Ghost. Good people, holy people, absolute- 
ly need crosses, and trials, and sorrows, and some- 
times a horrible disfigurement to keep them at that 
high water gospel mark, where self is the minimum 
and Christ is the maximum. 

We learn again from this experience of Paul that 
there is a something in the three-fold constitution of 
man, of spirit, soul and body, a nature, or a character- 
istic, which is neither sin on the one side nor Christ on 
the other, which needs to be chastened, and corrected, 
and brought into perfect harmony with Christ. 

Paul's thorn did not eliminate any sin, but it 
served to grind into a finer flour the natural grain of 
his make up. 

But the greatest lesson we get from this is, that 
the soul can be so subdued and filled with unspeakable 
humility that it will actually take delight in thorns and 
crosses and humiliations. 

When Jesus revealed to Paul his design in giv- 
ing him the bodily disfigurement, with its painful in- 
convenience, and that Christ's strength would be 
made perfect in that very weakness, then Paul got 



PAULS THORN. II3 

another vision of the blessedness of suffering and ex- 
claimed, "Most gladly therefore will I rather glory in 
mine infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest up- 
on me." This is a degree of spiritual victory even be- 
yond the visions of Paradise. Humility in its fulness 
and all its details of practice toward God and toward 
our fellows — humility in thought, in purpose, in behav- 
ior, in speech, and tone, and gesture — unostentatious, 
unpretending, unbounded humility, is a thousand 
times more essential to us in this life than the visions 
of Paradise. 

It is true we need all the heavenly vis- 
ions and all the bright outlets into God, which 
his mercy is pleased to grant us. I simply say 
we need boundless humility more than these. When 
we can welcome as a treasure those persons, those hard 
circumstances, those pains and mortifications, those 
treatments of our fellows, or those sad limitations in our 
lives, which always humble us into the dust, nay, even 
rejoice in these things, knowing that they drive us 
deeper into the sweet mind of Jesus, then indeed we 
trave gotten the victory. 

From that time on, our thorn, whatever it may 
be, like Aaron's dry almond rod, will blossom and bear 
sweet almonds, and this rod which blossoms and bears 
fruit, will be laid up in the ark of the covenant, and 
preserved through eternal ages, as a memorial of 
praise to the transforming power of grace. 



114 HUMAN RELIGION. 

XVII. 

HUMAN RELIGION. 

The world is full of human religion, and judged 
of from the New Testament, great multitudes who pro- 
fess to be Christians seem to have been only galvanized 
by human ecclesiastical methods into a sort of mechan- 
ical Christianity, with whom the first principles of 
a divine life seems utterly unknown. The more in- 
timately we become acquainted with God, the more 
delicately and sharply we can distinguish the shades 
of human character and the lines of truth and error. 
There are moments of great spiritual vision in which 
we seem to look out from our heavenly Father's 
bosom, and through the luminous atmosphere of his 
presence upon the peoples and nations of the earth, 
and upon the different shades of nominal Christianity, 
like great outspread plains stretching far off in the 
gloom, with here and there a hill top, made a little 
brighter by its elevation in the glimmering star-light, 
and our minds are stretched with great questions as 
to the destiny of these surging millions, and our 
hearts ache with inexpressible pity and longing to res- 
cure all we can ; and in our utter helplessness the tears 
will flow and the prayers ascend that the precious 
right hand that was pierced with the nail would be 
stretched out to save as many as possible. And amid 



HUMAN RELIGION. 115 

this pitiful condition of things it is more pitiable still 
to see the myriads of professed Christians, headed by 
throngs of elegant, cultured, ease-loving, self-seeking 
preachers, who are only playing at religion. In the 
light of eternity the great bulk of the visible church 
are like little children who play that they are gladia- 
tors, with rolls of paper for swords, and little kittens 
for lions. And the worst of it is, so many who seem to 
be real sincere Christians are blinded and misled by 
this human religion, and seem to think that out-and- 
out holiness, and a life of real self-sacrifice, is carrying 
religion a little too far. 

Human religion has a great many marks about it. 
It depends on human means, and resorts to the tac- 
tics of the creature, to the skill, the planning, the 
wire-pulling, not to say the downright trickery of un- 
regenerate human nature. It is managed by commit- 
tees, and majorities, and votes, and resolutions, and 
influential persons, and man-made legislation. This 
human religion is born of ecclesiastical assemblies, 
ecumenical conferences, and parliaments of the world's 
religions. It must live op big things, big churches, 
great preachers, fine music, esthetic culture, college 
diplomas, stained glass, dignity, churchly starch, min- 
isterial pomposity, high-sounding titles. It preaches 
human progress, the glory of man, the inventions of 
the age; the telegraph, the steamship, the diving-bell, 
the phonograph, submarine cables, vestibule trains, 
oil-wells, mines, the meteorology of shooting stars, the 



Il6 HUMAN RELIGION. 

weather report, the anatomy of a fly's wing, the X ray, 
the splendor of poetry, the brilliance of college train- 
ing. These are the things that fill the mind of hu- 
man religion, and are forever dropping in silvery ac- 
cents from its voluble tongue. It goes in for 
show and noise, and making startling effects, whether 
it be a funeral, or a picnic, or a wedding, or a brass 
band revival, or a sacramental service, or a baptismal 
performance, or a church dedication, or corner stone 
laying (in which it calls to its aid the abominations of 
secret lodges), or in the gathering of its legislative 
bodies, or in the publishing of its church literature, or 
in striking attitudes in the pulpit ; whatever it does, it 
must swell and show off, because unlike God's ap- 
pointed feasts, it lives on leavened bread, and is full of 
yeast, and therefore it must puff and swell and strut. 
This is the stuff that is palmed off on the world as the 
religion of the meek and lowly Jesus, who went about 
weeping and casting out devils, and transforming 
wretched lives. 

Human religion must needs be hedged in by all 
sorts of human wicker-work, social coteries, circles of 
old friends, social sets, ecclesiastical rings. People who 
have human religion must needs be held together, like 
the staves of a barrel, by outside hoops and bandages. 
Such persons cannot stand alone with God. One sin- 
gle frosty morning of misfortune, or great distress, 
will wither its fair flowers, and thousands of such re- 
ligionists combined into one could not endure for one 



HUMAN RELIGION. 117 

hour the cyclone of desolation that swept around Job. 
This is why, when persons who have human religion, 
leave their social surroundings and their little sec- 
tarian church-circles, and are thrown on the rough 
waves of the world, they flounder and fling away their 
religion, because it was not centered in their hearts, 
but only put on. It was a house plant, and had to be 
nursed by prosperity, and human friendships, and 
narrow, earthly loves; and when these things are 
stripped from it, the roof is taken from off its head 
and it cannot live in the great universal outdoors of 
God's kingdom. 

A preacher of human religion must be flattered, 
and puffed in the papers, and voted for as a delegate 
to his sectarian church assemblages. He needs toast- 
ing, with invitations to big dinners, carriage drives in 
the park, summer vacations, winter trips to a warm 
clime. He must needs have presents and religious 
bon-bons, and if he were peeled down to old-fashioned 
primeval vcissitudes, to walk with Abraham, Isaac 
and Jacob, with notable to hold him but faith in God, 
all his religion would likely evaporate. Church mem- 
bers who have human religion must receive many at- 
tentions from their pastors and other church mem- 
bers. They must be coaxed to attend prayer meet- 
ing, politely bowed to a half a square away, they must 
be visited for every headache, their whims must be 
consulted, they have sore toes that are easily tramped 
on, they either want to be excused from taking any 



Il8 HUMAN RELIGION. 

part in religious service, or else want to be invited to 
take the lead. Is there anything so abominable as 
human religion? Its very prayers are stuffed full of 
humanism, and various forms of self. This human 
religion is always anxious about results. It knows 
nothing about living by faith. It is always in a fever 
about accomplishing great things. It frets over small 
congregations, or rainy Sundays, or difficulties that 
prevent its plans. It is anxious about good collec- 
tions, and about having the sermon to take w T ell, and 
the hymn to be nicely rendered, and the jrayer meet- 
ing to pass off smoothly. It does not have a giant's 
tread, but walks is if on eggs. It is over cautious, 
easily frightened, full of compromise, uses human 
policy as a substitute for divine love, just as the tower- 
builders of Babel used mud-shine as a substitute for 
lime plaster. 

When human religion gets up a revival, it must 
have from five to twenty churches of heterogeneous 
creeds and sectarian bodies go into a great union ef- 
fort. It must have a mammoth choir, with great mu- 
sical instruments, and many preachers, and multi- 
plied committees, and each committee headed by some 
banker, or judge, or mayor, or millionaire's wife. It 
signs cards as a substitute for the broken-hearted 
cries of Scriptural repentance. It must count its con- 
verts for a few days' meetings by the hundreds. It 
must apologize for natural depravity, and plead for 
its existence in the soul till death, and by professing 



HUMAN RELIGION. 119 

to top off a few big branches of sin it only feeds and 
fattens the monster of heart-corruption at the very 
center of the soul. 

Human religion thinks it will conquer the world ; 
it denies holiness, ignores the omnipotent, personal 
agency of the Holy Ghost, steers clear of all divine 
manifestations, is terrified at the supernatural in grace, 
discounts personal testimony, is afraid of weeping, is 
terrified at a hallelujah, thinks that the sobs of a pen- 
itent should be stifled with a lavender scented hand- 
kerchief. 

Human religion curls its lip at holiness, caricatures 
divine healing, antagonizes the premillennial coming 
of Jesus, thinks the world is growing beautifully bet- 
ter, puts outward reformation for soul-salvation, runs 
off on lines of humanitarianism as a substitute for 
the indwelling Holy Spirit, is forever forming itself 
into fresh organizations of "leagues" and "endeavors" 
and "boys' brigades." It dreams of bringing the mil- 
lennium by social reforms, it denies that Jesus will 
come and reign on the earth, but seeks to usurp his 
place and build for itself a kingdom over the world. 
It is an ease-loving, jovial, laughing, fun-making, fun- 
loving, superficial thing. Its motives are bounded by 
time. All its enterprises have an atmosphere of 
earthliness about them. It despises the day of small 
things, it scorns little, humble people, and lonely ways. 
It is eager to jump to the height of prosperity, it is 
domineering and popish in its assertions over the 



120 WRINKLES. 

poor, and yet at the same time cringes like a puppy 
before the rich and the great ones. Its music has no 
pathos in it, its laughter lacks divine cheerfulness, its 
worship lacks supernatural love, its prayers bring 
down no huge answers, it works no miracles, calls 
forth no criticism from the world, it has no light of 
eternity in its eye. It is a poor, pale, sickly thing, 
born of the union of the heart of the world with the 
head of Christian theology — a mongrel, bastard thing, 
with a backslidden church for its mother and the 
world for its father. 

. This human religion will be everlastingly wrecked 
at the appearing of Jesus. Woe to that human being 
who has a human religion. 



XVIII. 

WRINKLES. 

The Holy Spirit reveals to us in the Epistle to the 
Ephesians that those believers who shall reach a de- 
gree of grace sufficient to be among the Lamb's bride 
must be sanctified and filled with the Spirit to such 
a degree as to be "without spot or wrinkle." Spots in- 
dicate positive impurities and wrinkles indicate neg- 
ative imperfections, or those defects which mar the 
symmetry and loveliness of character. Spots are 
washed out and wrinkles are ironed out. When ap- 



WRINKLES. 121 

plied to a living body spots are cleansed off, and wrin- 
kles are prevented by being fleshed out with nourish- 
ing food and exercise. There are six kinds of wrin- 
kles, all of which apply to the soul as well as the body. 
I. Dwarf wrinkles. When for any cause a child 
does not grow to full size as the years of maturity 
pass by, the stunting of growth is indicated by 
wrinkles on the features. The pattern of the skin is 
too large for the flesh and hangs like a loose garment 
upon the body. I saw a midget once twenty years old 
and only eighteen inches high. The skin on her face 
and hands was wrinkled like a very aged person's. 
There are dwarfs in Christian life who have never ad- 
vanced beyond the dimensions of childhood. They 
were born with a divine pattern of full, plump Chris- 
tian character, but owing to various maladies, 
which are forms of the Adamic life, their progress 
has been stunted. They put on the aspects of matu- 
rity, wear long clothes, assume the conversation and 
airs of full-sized Christians, but as to the Christian 
graces of humility, love, boldness, perseverance, long- 
suffering, spiritual discernment, prevailing prayer, 
personal testimony, breadth of spiritual knowledge, 
unwavering trust, or calmness under trial, they are 
found to be little, shriveled dwarfs, with tiny, pinched 
features, and little, squeaking voices, and pale, sallow 
complexion, which renders them pitiable in the eyes 
of adult believers. Spiritual dwarfs, like physical 
ones, form a melancholy species by themselves, known 



122 WRINKLES. 

by their wrinkles and piping voices; while they have 
the years of grown people they are always relegated 
to the nursery to play with the little children. The wrin- 
kles of spiritual dwarfhood consist in great ignorance 
as to the indwelling of the Holy Ghost and deep Bible 
truth, a contentedness to play with ecclesiastical toys, 
to be tickled and pleased with things only half way 
religious, to be upset by trifles, to live on the emo- 
tions, to having fits and spells of being blessed, to 
being led about by various whims and doctrines, to 
being taken up with every new religious fancy, to be- 
ing captivated by the senses, and a universal babyish- 
ness on lines of Christian thought and stability. 

II. Starvation wrinkles. When persons have 
gone a long time with scanty food the flesh decreases 
and the skin begins to wrinkle upon the body. This 
truth has its counterpart in the spiritual life. There 
are Christians who have full-sized souls, and their 
moral faculties will respond to the presentation of 
deep Scripture truth. They are honest-hearted, well- 
meaning souls, but are starved almost to death for 
lack of clear, strong spiritual instruction. They are 
hid away by the thousand in the various branches of 
the nominal church. Vast multitudes are so walled in 
by a network of religious and social circumstances in 
such a manner that they have never heard a clear pre- 
sentation from the Scriptures of the fulness of saving 
grace, or ever read a book which luminously set forth 
the full indwelling of the Holy Spirit. They are plod- 



wrinki.es. 123 

ding souls, living in the backwoods of spirituality, 
in religious log cabins with tallow candles, and prac- 
tically know nothing of the palatial dimensions of per- 
fect love, or the electric light of the indwelling Spirit. 
The wrinkles on their spiritual features are different 
from those on the dwarf. They would be fat and 
flourishing if they had the proper food, but being 
penned up in their several ecclesiastical cribs they 
know of nothing better than the wheatless straw which 
is dealt out to them by those who are equally pinched 
with spiritual poverty. Starvation wrinkles include 
such things as discouragement, a depressed, moping 
disposition, living on good resolutions, making New 
Year vows, measuring one's self by the seventh of Ro- 
mans, harping on old threadbare platitudes, depending 
on growth instead of the Holy Spirit, hoping for de- 
liverance in the dying hour, being afraid of anything 
supernatural and startling in Christian experience, 
thinking that the age of miracles in healing and spirit- 
ual revelation ended with the apostles. These wrin- 
kles can be detected upon the souls of great numbers 
in the various churches who have been slowly trudg- 
ing on in an old beaten way for many years. Scolding 
them will do no good. They are weak from sheer 
starvation. Under proper enlightenment and patient, 
loving instruction as to Scriptural perfection, some 
of them at least would fatten out into strong, healthy 
character. 

III. Sickness wrinkles. There are persons who 



124 WRINKLES. 

are neither dwarfs not starved for lack of food, but 
are sick with various maladies, so that they cannot 
eat, and the wrinkles have gathered upon them from 
the effects of disease. So there are Christians who 
have access to ample spiritual light and facilities of 
progress, but who are smitten with spiritual fevers 
and rheumatisms, and consumptions, which take away 
their vital forces and reduce them to a form of skeleton 
religious life. These wrinkles are in the form of poor 
spiritual appetites which cannot digest strong preach- 
ing or deep spiritual books ; they take the form of evil 
habits, churlish manners, worldly associations, secret 
societies, Sunday visiting, using tobacco, fashionable 
dress, egotism, fretting, combativeness, an argumenta- 
tive spirit, harsh judgments, touchiness, a gloomy, 
sulky disposition, self-defense, a desire for praise, 
wanting to be honored ; these and such like things in- 
dicate spiritual disease, which produces a disagreeable 
sick room condition throughout the whole life, and 
cover the soul with many wrinkles. There is need for 
a divine cathartic to purge the entire nature, and 
bring the inner man to a state of health, where strong 
food can be taken that will swell the features into the 
roundness of beautiful, fresh life. 

IV. Agony wrinkles. Persons in great torture 
will have wrinkles upon their face from sheer pain. 
In like manner there are Christians who are the sub- 
jects of awful demoniac attacks, and who undergo such 
severe mental torture as to present an abnormal con- 



WRINKLES. 125 

dition of the Christ-life. These agony wrinkles are 
such as melancholy, extreme asceticism, making re- 
ligion to be of the monk and nun type, looking at all 
things from the unhopeful side, seeking high states of 
grace through penance instead of through a loving 
faith, failing to see the good in persons who do not 
adopt our religious modes. If these agony wrinkles 
lead the soul into a deep, loving death to self, they be- 
come the means of a deep and blessed experience of 
heavenly mindedness, but if allowed to continue too 
long, they seem to petrify the soul into hard, cold, re- 
pulsive forms of religion without any sweetness, or at- 
tractiveness, and so repel all persons except a few of 
a bluish, abnormal type of inward life. 

V. Frown wrinkles. There afe persons who 
have formed habits of facial expression, such as frown- 
ing, twisting the mouth, snapping the eyes, curling the 
lip, and similar disfigurements, until they render them- 
selves very disagreeable. There is a counterpart to 
this among Christians. There are spiritual wrinkles 
which come from habits of religious disfigurement, 
religious frowning, a spirit of criticism, finding fault 
with other people's religion, stickling for nonessen- 
tials, a sort or spiritual snobbery, theological narrow- 
ness, a pitching into people and things that do not just 
measure up to our peculiar notions, discounting other 
people's good work because not done in our way, a 
miserable unpleasant habit of making spiritual frowns 
that destroy the beauty of the inner life and break up 



126 WRINKLES. 

the placid sea of the soul's bright face into ugly 
scowls. How rare it it to sit down in any religious 
company and talk five minutes without finding some 
one upon whose spiritual features there does not come 
forth these unpleasant frown-wrinkles of narrow, crit- 
ical, unloving expressions, which plainly manifest that 
the soul is not fat with pure, gentle love. A really 
fat soul, living on milk and honey and heavenly wine, 
cannot frown. It can weep, and suffer, and fight 
bravely for Jesus, but it cannot sputter, or snarl, or 
break up its beauty into peevish wrinkles. Hence all 
critical souls are lean, and, being lean, they frown, 
and produce those wrinkles which will never be ad- 
mitted at the wedding supper of the Lamb. Frown- 
ing Christians, like the foolish virgins, betray a lack 
of oil, which disqualifies them for the heavenly ban- 
quet. 

VI. Age wrinkles. In our natural life the 
wrinkles of age are unavoidable, and may be honor- 
able, but still they show weakness and decrepitude. In 
the spiritual life there is no provision for old age. On 
the other hand, the Christ-life in us is one of everlast- 
ing youth, growing fresher and stronger as the years 
flow softly over our heads. The apostle tells us "that 
though the outward man perish, our inward man is re- 
newed day by day." The man Christ Jesus forever 
wears the dew of youth, and his elect bride is to share 
the beauty of his unfading youth. But there are 
Christians who seem to get old in their religious life, 



WRINKLES. 127 

and have age wrinkles on their soul. These kind of 
wrinkles comprise such things as tradition, old beaten 
habits of thought, old theological prejudices, denounc- 
ing Scripture truths which seem new, but have been 
in the Bible for centuries, only not brought forth, the 
being led by formulated theologies and man-made 
catechisms, instead of the pure word of God, the be- 
ing influenced by persons and books and ideas just 
because they seem to have the weight of human au- 
thority and the musty complexion of old age, the going 
on in a rut of old experiences and dreading any de- 
grees of salvation that interferes with the old forms. 
The word "wrinkle" is a translation of the Greek word 
from which we get the word "rut" and "routine." So 
those who are without spot or wrinkle are those who 
are saved from spiritual ruts. These are the various 
wrinkles which are to be taken out of us by the inflow 
of the fulness of the Christ-life filling all the faculties, 
making the afifections fat with heavenly love, oiling 
the soul's features with gentleness and sweetness of ex- 
pression, making the very fountains of the heart young 
and tender and joyous, from the uncreated springs of 
the Holy Spirit. Just as the spots are removed by an 
inward washing, so the wrinkles are to vanish by an 
inward fulness that smooth out the features and makes 
the soul beautiful to God with the incrowning of his 
own grace. 



128 WHO LOVE HIS APPEARING. 

XIX. 

"WHO LOVE HIS APPEARING." 

It is evident there is some difference between lov- 
ing Christ and loving his appearing. It is one thing 
to love Christ as a Divine Being and personal Savior, 
and a slightly different thing to have the heart set with 
longing affection on the personal appearing of Christ 
in glory to gather his elect and set up his kingdom on 
the earth, just as there is a difference between having 
Christ's kingdom set up in a few hearts and having 
that kingdom set up over all the world. The one is 
the love of a Person, the other is the love of an act or 
public manifestation of that Person. 

The Apostle Paul, in his last words just before 
martyrdom, mentions a distinct form of love for Jesus 
when he speaks of a crown of righteousness which the 
Lord would not only give to him in the day of his com- 
ing, "but unto all them also that love his appearing." 

There are thousands of believers who profess to 
love Christ, yet are not assured that they love him with 
their whole heart. 

And then again, there are many who testify to lov- 
ing him with all the heart, who express no particular 
love for his personal appearing back to this world. 

It is both Scriptural and experimental, that there 
are a great many degrees of love for Jesus. 



WHO LOVE HIS APPEARING. 1 29 

There is no such thing as a dead level of love and 
devotion among believers. To love Jesus as our Sav- 
icr, then to love him as our Sanctifier, then to love 
him with increasing degrees of personal attachment as 
our constant Friend, our spiritual Bridegroom, to love 
every relationship he sustains to us, to love his Divin- 
ity and Humanity, to love every attribute of his Being 
and every quality of his matchless character, to love 
his glory and coming kingdom, and then to piningly 
and vehemently love his precious apearing in the 
clouds of heaven — this is the high-water mark of the 
love mentioned by Paul just before he was beheaded. 

Unless a believer has reached the experience of a 
definite, passionate affection for the personal appear- 
ing of Jesus, his love is not up to the full measure of 
love as set forth in the Songs of Solomon, the Epistles, 
and the Revelation. 

It is a singular fact that throughout the New Tes- 
tament we are not taught to fasten our eyes on the 
grave, but on the coming of Jesus. 

"As oft as ye do this, ye do show forth the Lord's 
death'' — not until you die — but "until he comes.'* 
"Occupy" — not until you die, but "till I come." And 
again, "Hold fast" — not till you die, but "till I come." 

Over and over again we are told that we are to 
serve the Irving and true God, and to wait, not for the 
grave, but "to wait for his Son from heaven." I 
Thess: 1:10. 

It is true many generations have died and the 



130 WHO LOVE HIS APPEARING. 

present generation may die before the Lord comes, 
but the Scriptures always speak of the Lord's coming 
as "at hand ;" and every successive generation of saints 
have been commanded to keep their eyes on the com- 
ing of Jesus and to lovingly and longingly wait for his 
appearing. 

But how many thousands of good people there 
are, even many who have heart purity, who if they 
should at this moment be compelled to honestly an- 
swer the question at once, "Do you now love the ap- 
pearing of the Lord Jesus — is your heart set on it; 
would you be glad to see him riding down on a bright 
cloud; can your whole heart say, 'Return, return, O 
Shunamite; return, return, that we may look upon 
thee?' " who would find it very difficult to give a 
prompt answer in the affirmative. The ardent love 
of our Lord's appearing is a form of experience which 
gives great vividness to the personality of Christ. It 
gives a distinctness to heavenly things which other- 
wise seem so far away as to be almost unreal. And as 
a telescope does not create heavenly bodies or multi- 
ply the objects on their surfaces, but simply draws 
them closer to us and renders them far more real and 
impressive, so this particular form of love for Christ's 
appearing pierces the misty veil that hangs over 
heavenly things and events and draws them close to 
us in spiritual apprehension and gives them a Scrip- 
tural reality. 

This degree of love brings us into more con- 



WHO LOVE HIS APPEARING. 131 

scious fellowship with the humanity of Jesus and works 
sweet and wondrous transformations in our minds, 
preparatory to actually seeing him as he is. 

It also makes Christ more emphatically our last 
end. It strangely focalizes all the currents of our life 
upon him. 

There are many portions of Scripture which have 
a vague, misty meaning in them, like the dreamy out- 
line of undistinguished mountains until the appearing 
of Christ becomes a blessed reality to our faith and 
our hearts leap with the hope of seeing him appear; 
and then that immense, gauze-like veil, that mantled 
so many Scriptures, is at once lifted and whole regi- 
ments of texts wheel into the line of clear interpreta- 
tion. 

Christ's personal reign on the earth, the gathering 
together of the Jews, the Apostles sitting on twelve 
thrones, the glory of God filling the earth as the waters 
cover the sea, and many similar prophecies, assume a 
common-sense, practical form. 

There are many who say they never bother them- 
selves about the coming of Jesus — that the main thing 
is to be ready. 

Very true; but according to the New Testament 
no one is really ready for the coming of Christ who is 
not in the heart attitude of waiting for him and who 
does not love his appearing. When we really love to 
see Christ come it will be no bother to us. If we do 
not love the appearing of Jesus we are just that much 
short of a full New Testament life. 



132 DREAMING OF JESUS. 



XX 



DREAMING OF JESUS. 

I have no doubt that in every generation there 
are thousands of Christians who have had wonderful 
dreams of Jesus or of the heavenly world. I have met 
with many of God's children who have had gracious 
visitations of heavenly truth and heavenly beings in 
their sleep. For various reasons such experiences are 
seldom related, except to confidential friends. There 
are many more wonderful things taking place in the 
lives of God's children than the world at large, or even 
the Church, know anything about. God is just as 
really our God when we are asleep as when we are 
awake. He never for one moment lets go his hold 
upon those who are entirely in his hands. The Holy 
Spirit holds all the faculties of the mind in his power, 
and he has absolute right to all the avenues of the 
soul, both sleeping and waking, and in all ages he 
has sent special dreams for the enlightenment, or en- 
couragement, or special guidance of his children. 

Four times in my life I have dreamed of seeing 
Jesus. These dreams have made indelible impres- 
sions upon my mind. Some of them I do not feel at 
liberty to relate, but all of them I found afterwards to 
be in harmony with certain portions of Scripture, 
and the things which I saw and heard in my dreams 



DREAMING OF JESUS. 1 33 

were especially helpful to me at the time, and after- 
wards. 

In January, 1896, while in Indianapolis, Indiana, 
I had a dream of Jesus which I have often felt impelled 
to relate. I dreamed I entered the door of a large, 
plain room, containing no furniture except a low bed 
in the farthest corner, upon which I saw a man lying 
with a pale face. The instant my eyes fell upon him 
I said to myself, "That is Jesus, but why is he lying in 
bed?" and immediately the words were mentally re- 
peated to me, "He was crucified in weakness." I in- 
stantly fell on my knees in the door, and to my left 
there seemed to be a few of the disciples holding a 
prayer-meeting, and John the Baptist was leading in 
prayer ; but my eye was so riveted on the Person 
lying in bed, that I did not turn my head to the other 
part of the room to see the disciples. I will say here 
that the face of the man in bed, was the same face 
which I had seen in my other dreams of Jesus, some 
fifteen years previous. It was a face which I have 
never seen one just like it, and in all the paintings of 
Jesus, I have only seen one resemble or in any way 
correspond with the one I saw in my dream ; it was a 
face of sadness, but of inexpressible tenderness and 
sympathy; there seemed to be a soft, bright, purple 
tint in it. As I fell on my knees, there came over my 
whole spirit a sacred fear, and at the same time an in- 
expressible attraction to go to the One I saw. My 
feelings resembled what philosophers speak of, as two 



134 DREAMING OF JESUS. 

kinds of attraction, that of cohesion and that of gravi- 
ty; the sense of holy dread made me almost afraid 
to move, and yet the sense of attraction seemed irre- 
sistible. The Person I saw uttered no audible word, 
but spoke to me mentally, and articulated his thoughts 
in my mind more distinctly and powerfully than any 
pronounced words could have done. He bade me to 
come to him. I went about half way from the door to 
the bed, and then stopped under a deep sense of holy 
dread, but with my eye fastened upon his face, with a 
charmed, uncontrollable gaze. He then extended his 
hand out over the side of the bed, and beckoned me 
to come closer, with a slight smile upon his features, 
but the mental articulation "Come closer" was ut- 
tered with a peculiar emphasis which seemed to pos- 
sess my whole mind. I immediately went forward on 
my knees to the bed, and then sat on the side of the 
bed, and then under the sweet, persuasive influence, I 
leaned myself back upon his bosom, with his left arm 
under me. Song 2:6. As I did so there was an in- 
describable sensation passed through my whole being. 
It seemed to me that the soul of my Savior extended 
out from his body and passed through my soul and 
body, like the sensation of warm, sweet water ; every 
atom of my body seem pervaded with a sweet, hot 
sensation, and at the same time, a bright flame of a 
soft, white, cream color enveloped my body about two 
feet thick. I ctfn never describe the mental and spirit- 
ual sensations of that moment. It seemed that my 



DREAMING OF JESUS. 1 35 

whole being, body, soul and spirit, felt a sensation of 
absolute satisfaction. 

There was not a desire, or w T ish, or thought, or 
recollection, or sensation, of my whole being, which 
was not filled with inexpressible contentment and bliss. 
My memory was so filled that I could recollect noth- 
ing but Christ, my imagination so flooded I could con- 
ceive of nothing but Christ, my affections so dilated I 
could love nothing but what was of Christ, my un- 
derstanding so illuminated I could think of nothing 
but Christ. He seemed to fill to the uttermost extent, 
every appetite, affection, desire, thought, recollection, 
imagination, so that there was no room for even a rip- 
ple to pass through it. As I lay in that state, the 
thought was distinctly uttered in my mind, "This is 
just the way I shall feel in heaven." I lay in that con- 
dition apparently five minutes, and then felt an impres- 
sion it was time to go. As I got off the bed I mental- 
ly asked the Savior to give me some gift of his love. 
He put his right hand around to his left side, where I 
saw the wound that the spear had made, and seemed 
to take something from the open wound, though it was 
invisible and intangible, but he held it between his 
thumb and fore-finger in the right hand. I held my 
right hand and he seemed to deposit the gift in the 
palm of my hand, and my fingers closed over it. Al- 
most immediately I was horrified to see a lot of ver- 
min crawling on the floor, and mentally called his at- 
tention to it. I thought he rose with great alacrity 



136 DREAMING OF JESUS. 

and began killing the vile things, and then he spoke 
to me mentally, saying, "The gift I put in your hand 
was the power to kill these same things," so I at once 
began crushing them. Then there was opened up in 
my mind a very clear apprehension of the types of the 
animals and insects. I seemed to understand intui- 
tively, that certain animals, as swine, goats, bears, 
tigers, peacocks and serpents, were distinctive types of 
certain kinds of sins. And that the insects, flies, mos- 
quitos, bugs and vermin were distinct types of the lit- 
tle meannesses, jealousies, envies, harsh words, self- 
conceit and narrowness and over forwardness, and 
various other faults which are among the people of 
God. And it was solemnly impressed upon my mind 
that Jesus wanted me to set forth a type of spiritual 
life and instruction, which would not only save men 
from the great and well classified sins, but a type of 
self-abnegation and love and Christ-likeness of spirit 
which would kill out the petty meannesses which we 
see most everywhere among good people, and which 
often manifest themselves among Christian workers in 
religious meetings. With this thought I woke, but 
for days and weeks the dream lingered with me in 
great vividness. And though many months have 
passed away, that face I saw in that dream, and the 
mental articulation of that spiritual voice in my mind, 
and the sensation I had reposing on his bosom are 
still distinct in my memory. I have no doubt that 
manv believers have had similar dreams, and I would 



DEMONIAC POSSESSION. 1 37 

not relate this except for the purpose of urging all who 
read it to approach just as close as possible for us to 
get to his heart ; there is an infinite welcome in that 
heart for every yearning soul, and let us see to it that 
we cultivate a type of piety which not only kills out the 
beasts of wickedness, but all the little mean insects and 
faults that mar the Christ-likeness of the soul. 



XXI. 

DEMONIAC POSSESSION. 

The subject of demoniac possession is one fre- 
quently referred to in the Scriptures, and especially in 
the New Testament. The phenomena of demoniac 
possession are manifold, and when we are sufficiently 
illuminated to detect and classify them, we find that all 
the statements in Scripture are perfectly verified. The 
following items will be found true. 

First. The agency of demons is always brought 
more conspicuously into notice in proportion to the 
manifestation and power of God's work among souls. 
When the Son of God w r as manifest in the flesh it 
called forth the activity and outspoken agency of de- 
mons more than ever before, and we often see in- 
stances in Scripture where the approach of Christ, or of 
a Spirit-filled apostle to some possessed person, would 
mightily stir the demon in him. Just as the approach 



138 DEMONIAC POSSESSION. 

of summer causes vegetation to sprout, the same heat 
also stirs the snakes into motion. So as God ap- 
proaches men in his Son, or in his disciples, it stirs 
the latent demonism that otherwise lies cold and dor- 
mant; and oftentimes the more powerful the divine 
manifestation, the fiercer will be the demoniac exhi- 
bition. 

Secondly. Demons are of a multiplied variety. 
They are of various types, greater in diversity than 
human beings, and these demons always seek to pos- 
sess a person congenial to them, in some character- 
istic. The Bible tells us of unclean demons, deaf and 
dumb demons, witch-craft, and fortune-telling demons, 
of insanity, of drunkenness, of gluttony, of idleness, of 
wonder or miracle working, of various forms of sick- 
ness, despotic demons, theological demons, screeching 
and yelling demons. There are demons that act more 
particularly on the body, or some organ or appetite of 
the body. There are others that act more directly up- 
on the intellect or the sensibilities and emotions and 
affections. There are others of a higher order that 
act directly on man's spiritual nature, upon the con- 
science, or the spiritual perceptions. These are the 
ones that act as angels of light, and side-track and de- 
lude many who are real Christians. 

Third. These demons seek to fasten themselves 
on to human beings as parasites, like ticks in cattle, or 
mistletoe on a live tree. They seek out those whose 
make-up and temperament is most congenial to them- 



DEMONIAC POSSESSION. 1 39 

selves, and then seek to fasten themselves on to some 
part of their body, or brain, or some appetite, or some 
faculty of the mind, either the reason, or imagination, 
or perception, and when they get access they bury 
themselves into the very structure of the person so as 
to identify themselves with the personality of the one 
they possess. In a great many instances they do not 
get possession of the individual, but obtain such a hold 
on some part of the mind as to torment the person 
w r ith periodical attacks of something strange and ab- 
normal, out of all proportion to the general character 
and make-up of the individual. 

Fourth. These demons feed themselves on the 
person with whom they are allied. There are three 
great realms of law — the natural and the supernatural, 
and between these come a strange middle realm called 
the perternatural. This middle realm embraces a vast 
range of phenomena, which cannot be definitely classi- 
fied or ranged under the regular facts of nature or 
grace, but a strange medley, like the vast swarm of 
asteroids that float in space, and which, striking 
against the atmosphere, produce the shooting stars we 
see in November. This is the realm of clairvoyance, 
second-sight, hypnotism, mind-reading, insanity, and 
abnormal passions. It is in this realm that a large 
class of demons find their favorite hunting ground. 
There are allusions in Scripture, and facts gathered 
from experience, sufficient to prove that certain varie- 
ties of demons live on the juices in the human blood, 



140 DEMONIAC POSSESSION. 

or they absorb to themselves some of the natural af- 
fections, so that a person thus possessed will lose their 
natural affection for husband or wife, or children, 
or brothers and sisters, because the demon has ab- 
sorbed that affection to himself. 

We are told in the Apocrypha of a demon that 
desperately loved a young woman, and killed the man 
that she married, and repeated this several times, until 
he was banished of the Lord by an angel. We are 
told by the prophet that in the awful dark days of Je- 
rusalem, the demon-possessed women would go into 
a secret chamber in the temple to mourn for Thamuz, 
who was a demon that had so possessed their bodies 
as to turn them from their husbands, and infatuate 
them with unnatural passions. It is absolutely certain 
that whisky and opium are the inventions of the devil, 
and through these millions of demons have fastened 
themselves upon poor human beings. 

Fifth. There are religious demons, not holy, but 
nevertheless religious and filled with a devilish form of 
religion which is a counterfeit of true, deep spiritual- 
ity. These pseudo religious demons very rarely at- 
tack young beginners, but they hover around persons 
who advance into deeper experiences, and seek every 
opportunity to fasten themselves upon the conscience, 
or the spiritual emotions of persons of high states of 
grace, and especially if they are of a vivid or energetic 
temperament. These are the demons that play havoc 
among many professors of holiness. The way they 



DEMONIAC POSSESSION. 141 

get hold of persons is as follows : A soul goes through 
a great struggle and is wonderfully blessed. Floods 
of light and emotion sweep through the being. The 
shore lines are all cut. The soul is launched out into 
a sea of extravagant experience. At such a junc- 
ture these demons hover around the soul, and 
make strange suggestions to the mind of something 
odd, or outlandish, or contrary to common sense and 
decent taste. They make these suggestions under the 
profession of being the Holy Ghost. They fan the 
emotions, and even produce a strange fictitious exhila- 
ration, which is simply their bait to get into some 
faculty of the soul. For example, one man said that 
just after receiving the baptism of the Holy Ghost, as 
he would lie in bed at night, a strange, wild sort of ex- 
hilaration would shoot through his mind, and a sudden 
impulse to jump out of bed and go screaming all over 
ttte house, which, if he had yielded to once, would 
likely have given the demon an access to his brain, 
which might have ruined him. 

A very holy and useful woman says that soon af- 
ter receiving the baptism of the Spirit, there came to 
her, one night in the church, a wild and abnormal im- 
pulse to throw the hymn-book at the preacher and to 
run over the church screaming, and it took all her will- 
power to keep her hand from throwing that book, but 
she had the common sense to know that the Holy 
Spirit was not the author of such a crazy freak. If 
she had yielded to that sudden feeling, it would have 



142 DEMONIAC POSSESSION. 

likely given that fanatical demon admission to her 
emotional nature, and ruined her life-work. She is a 
person who knows the mighty demonstrations of the 
Holy Spirit, and understands God sufficiently to know 
he is not the source of wild and indecent conduct. 

Another good man said he felt like running 
around the camp-ground, and climbing every tree, but 
had enough discernment to ".try the spirits," and 
found the impulse was not of God. But another per- 
son at the same camp meeting felt the same impulse, 
and yielded to it, and went yelling and screaming 
through the woods, climbing trees, tearing his clothes, 
exhausting his body, and in a short time became utter- 
ly useless to the work of God. Another person said 
he felt like rolling on the floor, and groaning and 
pulling the chairs around, but he distinctly perceived 
that the impulse to do so had something wild in it, and 
a touch of self-display contrary to the gentleness and 
sw r eetness of Jesus, and as quick as he saw it was an 
attack of a false spirit he was delivered, and the tide of 
pure love flowed on through his breast. But another 
man had the same sudden impulse, and fell down 
groaning and roaring, beating the floor with his hands 
and feet, and the demon entered into him as an angel 
of light, and got him to think that his outlandish con- 
duct was the Holy Ghost, and it became a regular hab- 
it in the meetings he attended, until he would ruin 
every religious meeting he was in. 

It requires great humility to try these spirits and 



DEMONIAC POSSESSION. 143 

detect the false ones. The most dangerous demons in 
existence are those pseudo pious ones who soar around 
the high altitudes of the spiritual life, like eagles 
around great mountain tops, and seek to fasten their 
talons upon lofty and conspicuous prey. These are 
the demons of spiritual pride, of religious ambition, of 
false prophetic vision, of strained and far-fetched il- 
luminations, of wild and fantastic notions, of strange 
and abnormal affections. These are the demons that 
flit over the sun-lit regions in the land of Canaan, and 
attack very seldom any but advanced believers. 

Sixth. The effects of being possessed by this 
sort of demons are manifold, and plainly legible to a 
well-poised mind. Such possession causes people to 
run off into things that are odd, and foolish, and un- 
reasonable and indecent. It leads them to adopt a 
peculiar voice or twang, or an unnatural shouting, or 
some senseless shaking of the body, or the striking of 
certain attitudes, or the adopting of some silly whim, 
such as a man's wearing long hair, or parting it in the 
middle to imitate pictures of Jesus, or some other pe- 
culiar crotchet in wearing apparel, or eating, some- 
thing that locates the man's religion in the physical 
and not in his heart. Or such a possession is mani- 
fested by peculiar heresies in the mind, of which there 
is a nameless variety. It produces a certain wildness in 
the eye, and harshness in the voice. Such persons in- 
variably break the law of love, and severely condemn 
people who do not conform to themselves. As a rule 



144 DEMONIAC POSSESSION. 

such persons lose their flesh, for demoniac possession 
is very wearing on the vital forces, and produces a ter- 
rible strain on the heart and nervous system. 

There are many persons who are truly godly and 
want to live holy lives, who have failed to discern 
these evil spirits, and under strange impulses have al- 
lowed some kind of demon to take hold of them, and 
though they are still conscientious servants of God, are 
sufficiently influenced by evil spirits of a high order 
as to utterly ruin their usefulness. 

How can such persons get delivered? They must 
frankly admit to themselves, and to God, and others, 
that they have been misled, and then request the 
saints to pray God to cast the demon out. To detect 
the agency of evil spirits and then to have the humil- 
ity to frankly acknowledge it, is more than one-half the 
victory. It requires a self-abasement to make such a 
confession as very few persons are willing to undergo. 
The great skill of a demon is to hide himself under the 
guise of the Holy Ghost, or of another's personality, 
and the greatest triumph over evil spirits is the power 
to detect and try them. To do this, the greatest req- 
usite is humility — not a professed humility, but a rad- 
ical, searching humility that gets into dust and ashes, 
with uncovered head, and scrapes itself with a pot- 
sherd, and is willing to be esteemed by any and every- 
body as the filth and off-scouring of all things; a hu- 
mility that does not scorn to sit with Job on the ash- 
heap, or with ragged Lazarus and the dogs, and look 



DEMONIAC POSSESSION. 1 45 

up from the bottom of self-abasement into the pitiful 
eyeof God, and look to him alone for compassion and 
help. 

This is the humility that is nauseating to a demon, 
and makes him fly. For the lack of this fathomless 
humility is the reason why not one fanatic in a thou- 
sand ever gets delivered and restored to sanctified 
common sense, and to that peaceful and loving spirit 
which is the fountain of true usefulness. 



BOOKS 

By GEO. D. WATSON, D. D 



Holiness Manual, 25 cts. 

Containing twenty-five Bible readings giving proof 
texts for the various stages of grace. Specially help- 
ful for young converts. 

White Robes, = - - =50 cts. 

Giving clear definitions of the difference between 
pardon and purity, cleansing and growth, partial and 
perfect love. 

Coals of Fire, = - - = 50 cts. 

Expositions from the Old Testament on the deep 
things of God, including the experiences of Moses, 
Elijah, Isaiah, etc. A book for advanced Christians. 

Secret of Power, - - - =50 cts. 

Expounding the doctrine of the Holy Spirit in His 
relation to the human faculties. 

Love Abounding, - $1.00 

Containing sermons stenographically reported and ex- 
positions on select portions of Scripture. 

Seven Overcomeths, 25 cts. 

A series of discourses from the book of Revelation. 

Soul Food, = - = =50 cts. 

Treating of the interior life of faith in relation to 
thought, and language, and affection and suffering, 
and prayer, and special providence. A book that 
strike sthe popular heart of Christian people. 



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